Our fight with Tammany

Our Fight With

Tammany

Parkhurst

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OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

REV. CHARLES H. PARKHURST, D.D.

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1S95

Copyright, 1895, by
Charles H, Parkhurst

TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMP

CONTENTS

CIIAl'TKK I.

PAGE

The Society for the Peevention of Crime, . . i

CHArTER II.

The Madison Square Pulpit's Analysis of Tammany, 8

CHAPTER III.
Discourse of February 14, Reviewed and Reviled, , 26

CHAPTER IV.
Rebuked by the Grand Jury, ...... 38

CHAPTER V.
Collecting Evidence 49

CHAPTER VI.
AFFID.^.vITS IN the Pui.ri t 59

CHAPTER VII.

Presentment by the Grand Jury against the Police
Department, 79

VI CONTENTS

CHAPTER VIII.

PAGE

Byrnes and the "Great Shake-up," .... 88

CHAPTER IX.
On the Rack,

CHAPTER X.
Mass Meeting at Cooper Union 113

CHAPTER XI.
The Puu'IT and Politics, 12S

CHAPTER XII.
Gardner's Arrest and Trial, 142

CHAPTER XIII.
The Social Evil 154

CHAPTER XIV.
Byrnes's Effort to Discredit the Crusade, . . 165

CHAPTER XV.
First Att.a.ck on Devery, 177

CHAPTER XVI.
Denunciation and Whitewash iSq

CONTENTS Vll

CIIAl'TKR XVII.

PAGE

The Broome Street Mou, 202

CHAPTER XVm.
War on the Captains 214

CHAPTER XIX.

The Chamber oe Commerce Appeals to Albany, . .231

CHAPTER XX.
The Senatorl\l Investigatini; Committee, . . . 240

CHAPTER XXI.
The Committee oe Seventy 253

CHAPTER XXII.
Election Appeal from the Madison Square Pn.piT, . 267

CHAPTER XXIIl.
Victory — Its Perils and Opportunities, . . . 2S5

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

CHAPTER I

THE SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRIME

The purpose in these pages is to set forth, as briefly
and connectedly as possible, the steps that conducted
to the overthrow of Tammany Hall on November 6,
1894. The writer does not claim to have handled the
matter exhaustively, and has limited himself quite
closely to those features in the case upon which he
can speak with the authority of an actor or a witness.

We have been doubly motived to this recital. In
the first place, although there seems to have been a
good deal of desultory warfare waged during the past
three years, we are concerned to have our fellow-citi-
zens appreciate the thread of identity of purpose upon
which all apparent desultoriness has been strung. We
should like, also, to be of service to other municipal-
ities in our country which may still be suffering the
same kind of tyranny which our own city has just re-
nounced. Frequent appeals are reaching us from
those who would like to have reproduced elsewhere

2 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

the results which have been secured here, and who
seek from us such assistance as we may be able to
render. It has seemed that we can in no way so well
accede to such requests as by exhibiting, in as simple
a manner as possible, the general outline of events in
our own town. This is not to deny that each city has
its own special and distinguishing conditions. At the
same time, as regards the main point at issue, all
American cities of any considerable size are substan-
tially circumstanced in much the same way. Virtue is
at the bottom and knavery on top. The rascals are
out of jail and standing guard over men who aim to be
honorable and law-abiding. Statesmanship has very
largely degenerated into small and dirty politics.
Cities are administered in the pocket interests of the
municipal government, not in the moral, social, in-
dustrial, and economic behest of the rank and file of
the citizens. Something has been done in New York
in the way of reversing this policy. If it can be done
here it can be done in any city in the Union; and it is
not in any spirit of arrogance or conceit that we say
that perhaps other cities, still in the condition in which
we have been, maybe able to learn something from the
way in which we have succeeded in escaping from that
condition.

However numerous and effective the influences
which in these last months have been operating to the
overthrow of Tammany, the primary movement in that
direction, it is conceded, dates from the reorganization

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 3

aiul activity of the Society for the Prevention of
Crime. This Society was organized in October, 1878,
and the names of the incorporators are as follows:

Peter Cooper, David J. Whitnev,

Howard Crosby, Frederick A. Booth,

William H. Wickham, Oscar E. Schmidt,

Benjamin Tatham, D. B. St. John Roosa,

William F. Mott, Henry Drisler,

Erastus D. Culver, Alonzo Follett,

William B. Merritt, William P. Prentice,

S. Iren.eus Prime, Geo. G. Wheelock,

John H. Hinton.

The original incorporators organized in the elec-
tion of Dr. Howard Crosby as President, which position
he continued to hold until his death, which occurred
March 29, 1891; and to such degree was its policy
shaped by his wisdom and animated by his spirit that
it was publicly known as "Dr. Crosby's Society."

It was through Dr. Crosby's personal influence that
I (if I may be permitted to speak of myself in the
first person singular) became associated with the So-
ciety for the Prevention of Crime. On the morning of
Sunday, October 26, 1890, a little more than a week,
therefore, prior to the annual election of that year, I
preached in the pulpit of the Madison Square Church
a sermon bearing upon election issues, which was
printed the next morning in one of the daily journals
and arrested Dr. Crosby's attention.

4 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

The next day he addressed me the following letter,
which is here reproduced in facsimile, which is richly
characteristic of the good Doctor, both in matter and
chirography :

My membership in the Society dates from Novem-
ber 6, 1890, and between that time and the death of
Dr. Crosby, the Society held but six meetings — quite
insufficient to familiarize a novitiate with the Society's
personnel and methods. My election as President of
the Society occurred on April 30, 1891. My accept-
ance of such position I made conditional upon the
Society's adoption of a policy which has since ob-
tained in all of its operations, and which has been so
determinative of all that has transpired later as to
require distinct notice at this point.

Somewhat prior to the date of my first connection
with the Society I had become knowing to a condition
of things throughout the city, of which, during all the
years of my residence in town up to that date, I had
been ignorant, and of which, except for a special
cause, I should probably have continued ignorant.
My interest in the congregation to which I minister,
made up as it is quite largely of young men, induced
in me a special concern for young men and for the
conditions under which their urban life has to main-
tain itself. Through acquaintance with them, and in
consequence of information which I gathered from
trusted members both of the legal and medical pro-

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OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 5

fessions, I became easily familiar with certain facts
which make out a large feature in the life of the city ;
and it occurred to me whether there might not be
some means by which, in association with others, I
could operate to reduce the strain of current temp-
tation and make it at least a little easier for a city
young man to maintain himself at his best.

After the above matter had gone through due pro-
cess of fermentation in my own mind, I commenced
to push out quietly in the two directions of the gam-
bling evil and the social evil, and the first obstruction
against which I ran was the Police ! The Department
which, in my rustic innocence, I had supposed existed
for the purpose of repressing crime, it now began to
dawn upon me, had for its principal object to protect
and foster crime and make capital out of it. It was a
rude awakening to a cruel fact, but it was a fact in
the light of which the last three years have been con-
stantly lived.

It was that appreciation of the situation, as thus
awakened, that I insisted, upon my election to the
Presidency of the Society for the Prevention of Crime,
should henceforth determine the Society's policy.
Previously the Society had worked in conjunction
with the Police. I made it conditional upon my ac-
ceptance of the Presidency that the Society should
henceforth deal with the Police as its arch-antagonist,
making with it no alliance and giving it no quarter.
We are the only organization of a similar character in

6 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

the town that does not consent to lean on the arm of
the PoUce Department ; and, in view of the thorough-
ly rotten character which that Department has been
demonstrated to possess, our peculiarity in that par-
ticular is one of which we think we have reason to
be proud. Repeated efforts have been made by the
Police, or by their friends, to draw us into relations of
compromise and co-operation. The temptation has,
in one or two instances, been strong to yield to such
overtures, and doubtless, had the step been taken,
there would have been a large and gratifying issue of
immediate results ; but it would have been at the sur-
render of our vantage-ground, and what we should
have gained in superficial victory we should have
sacrificed in substantial power.

That, then, was one feature of the policy adopted
by the Society at its reorganization in 1891 ; we de-
termined to fight the disease and not the symptoms.
The second feature followed on naturally from that.
Hitherto the Society, through its Executive Com-
mittee and its agents, had contented itself with deal-
ing with small infractions of the law, such as arresting
bartenders for selling to minors ; raiding saloons and
disorderly houses that had not sufficient "pull " to
render impossible the serving of a warrant. From
that time on the Society commenced to gun for large
game.

The late David J. Whitney, one of the original cor-
porate members of the Society, with a heart as tender

OUR FIGHT Win I TAMMANY /

as that of a child, but a very Samson in all the ciual-
ities of a born fighter, advocated tliis modification of
policy with characteristic energy and enthusiasm, and
there is no living member of the Society but wishes
that our ardent and beloved old colleague might have
survived to witness the overthrow of the rascals whom
he hated with so intelligent and relentless a hatred.
Such, then, were the elements of policy, in pursuance
of which the reorganized Society in 1891 commenced
its work — " Down with the Police " and " No Shot for
Diminutive Game."

CHAPTER II

THE MADISON SQUARE PULPIT's ANALYSIS OF TAMMANY

The events related in the previous chapter led up
to the discharge of what may perhaps be called, " The
First Gun of the Campaign," the sermon preached in
Madison Square Church, Sabbath morning, February
14, 1892.

No notice had been given of its delivery and no one
was less suspicious than the preacher himself of the
disturbing effect it would produce. He was so thor-
oughly persuaded of the truth he spoke, that it came
to him as a surprise that community should become in
any degree wrought up over it. As one of the links in
the chain of sequence, the discourse is here inserted
substantially as delivered.

" Ye are the salt of the earths — Matthew v. 13.
That states illustratively the entire situation. It
characterizes the world we live in ; it defines the func-
tions of the Christianity that has entered into the
world, and it indicates by implication the stint which
it devolves upon each Christian man and woman of us
to help to perform. These words of our text occur in

OUR FKilir Wiril TAMMANY 9

what we have learned to know as "The Sermon on the
Mount," or what we might properly designate as
Christ's statement of fundamentals. In this sermon
He is putting in His preliminary work: He is laying a
basis broad and deep enough to carry everything that
will be laid upon it later. And it is one of the impres-
sive features of the matter that the Founder of Chris-
tianity so distinctly foresaw that practical and con-
crete relation with the world into which the new faith
was to come, and that so early in His ministry as this
He announced that relation in terms so simple and
unmistakable.

Ye are the salt of the earth. This, then, is a cor-
rupt world, and Christianity is the antiseptic that is to
be rubbed into it in order to arrest the process of its
decay. An illustration taken from common things,
but which states at a stroke the entire story. The
reason for selecting the above Scripture, and the bur-
den that is upon my mind this morning is this : that
current Christianity seems not in any notable or con-
spicuous way to be fulfilling the destiny which the
Lord here appoints for it. It lacks distinct purpose,
and it lacks virility. We are living in a wicked world,
and we are fallen upon bad times. And the question
that has been pressing upon my heart these days and
weeks past has been — What can I do ?

We are not thinking just now so much of the world
at large as we are of the particular part of the world
that it is our painful privilege to live in. We are not

10 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANV

saying that the times are any worse than they have
been ; but the evil that is in them is giving most un-
commonly distinct tokens of its presence and vitality,
and it is making a good many earnest people serious.
They are asking, What is to be done ? What is there
that I can do ? In its municipal life our city is thor-
oughly rotten. Here is an immense city reaching out
arms of evangelization to every quarter of the globe ;
and yet every step that we take looking to the moral
betterment of this city has to be taken directly in the
teeth of the damnable pack of administrative blood-
hounds that are fattening themselves on the ethical
flesh and blood of our citizenship.

We have a right to demand that the Mayor and
those associated with him in administering the affairs
of this municipality should not put obstructions in the
path of our ameliorating endeavors ; and they do.
There is not a form under which the devil disguises
himself that so perplexes us in our efforts, or so be-
wilders us in the devising of our schemes as the pol-
luted harpies that, under the pretence of governing
this city, are feeding day and night on its quivering
vitals. They are a lying, perjured, rum-soaked, and
libidinous lot. If we try to close up a house of prosti-
tution or of assignation, we, in the guilelessness of our
innocent imaginations, might have supposed that the
arm of the city government that takes official cogni-
zance of such matters, would like nothing so well as
to watch daytimes and sit up nights for the purpose of

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY II

bringing these dirty malefactors to their deserts. On
the contrary, the arm of the city government that
takes official cognizance of such matters evinces but
a languid interest, shows no genius in ferreting out
crime, prosecutes only when it has to, and has a mind
so keenly judicial that almost no amount of evidence
that can be heaped up is accepted as sufficient to war-
rant indictment.

We do not say that the proposition to raid any
noted house of assignation touches our city gov-
ernment at a sensitive spot. We do not say that they
frequent them ; nor do we say that it is money in their
pockets to have them maintained. We only say (we
think a good deal more, but we only say) that so far
as relates to the blotting out of such houses the
strength of the municipal administration is practi-
cally leagued with them rather than arrayed against
them.

'rhe same holds true of other institutions of an
allied character. Gambling-houses flourish on all these
streets almost as thick as roses in Sharon. They are
open to the initiated at any hour of day or night.
They are eating into the character of some of what we
are accustomed to think of as our best and most
promising young men. They are a sly and constant
menace to all that is choicest and most vigorous in a
moral way in the generation that is now moving on to
the field of action. If we try to close up a gambling-
house, we, in theguilelessnessof our innocent imagina-

12 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

tions, might have supposed that the arm of the city-
government that takes cognizance of such matters
would find no service so congenial as that of combin-
ing with well-intentioned citizens in turning up the
light on these nefarious dens and giving to the public
certified lists of the names of their frequenters. But
if you convict a man of keeping a gambling hell in this
town you have got to do it in spite of the authorities
and not by the aid of the authorities.

It was only this past week that a search-warrant was
issued by one of the courts in town, and before the
officer with his posse reached No. 522 Sixth Avenue,
the action of the court reached there, and the house
that is spoken of in Scripture as empty, swept, and
garnished, was not, in point of unadorned vacuity, a
circumstance to the innocent barrenness of the gam-
bling-rooms in question. I do not say that the judge
of Jefferson Market Police Court was responsible for
the slip. I do not believe that he was, at least in any
direct way. All that is intended by the reference
is that the police court leaked. With hardly the
shadow of a doubt that court, in some one of its sub-
ordinates at any rate, stands in with the gamblers, and
to that degree the court becomes the criminal's pro-
tector and guardian angel. This is mentioned only as
illustration of the fact that some people understand,
and that all people ought to understand, that crime in
this city is intrenched in our municipal administration,
and that what ought to be a bulwark against crime is

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY I3

a Stronghold in its defence. We strike the same
difficulty again when we come to matters of excise.

No one can have followed the crusade that has
been in progress these last weeks against unlicensed
saloons or against saloons that have been open in un-
licensed hours, and have a solitary shred of doubt that
every conviction of a saloon-keeper is obtainable only
by a square fight with the constituted authorities.
The police do not take the initiative. What has been
done during the last six weeks has been done because
the outraged sentiment of decent people voicing itself
through the press has rendered it impossible for what
we amuse ourselves by calling the guardians of the
public peace and virtue, vulgarly known as the police,
to do otherwise than bring some criminals to justice,
or at least to threaten to do so. Unless all signs are
misleading, your average policeman or your average
police captain is not going to disturb a criminal, if the
criminal has means, if he can help it.

We are saying nothing as to the connection there is
between the criminal's means and the policeman's in-
dulgence. We only state in explanation that it is the
universal opinion of those who have studied longest
and most deeply into the municipal criminality of this
city, that every crime here has its price. I am not
saying that that is so, but that the more intently any
man of brains scrutinizes these matters the more he
discovers along this line that is of an intensely inter-
esting nature. I should not be surprised to know that

14 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

every building in this town in which gambling or pros-
titution or the illicit sale of liquor is carried on has
immunity secured to it by a scale of police taxation
that is as carefully graded and as thoroughly system-
atized as any that obtains in the assessment of per-
sonal property or real estate that is made for the pur-
pose of meeting municipal, State, or Federal expenses
current. The facts do not always get to the surface,
but when they do they let in a great lot of light into
the subterranean mysteries of this rum-besotted and
Tammany-debauched town.

Near the beginning of the year the Grand Jury con-
sidered the matter of indicting the keeper of a noto-
rious resort on Fourteenth Street. (I am giving the
case as it was presented in one of our most trust-
worthy journals, and has, I believe, not been con-
tradicted). There was no legal evidence at hand that
would be sufficient to convict, and the District-Attor-
ney was asked to secure some. An innocent imagina-
tion would have supposed that he would jump at the
opportunity. The request was repeated by the Grand
Jury, apparently without effect. His hesitancy may
have been due to either one of two causes. He may
have known so much about the establishment that he
did not like to touch it, or he may have known so little
about it that he was sceptical as to the truth of the
derogatory reports that were in circulation in regard
to it. Indeed, the District-Attorney said to me in his
own house four weeks ago that until after McGlory's

OUR FIGHT WIT?I TAMMANY 1 5

establishment was raided he had no idea tliat institu-
tions of so vile a character existed in this city. All we
can say is that we must give the young man the benefit
of the doubt. Such a case is truly affecting. Innocence
like that in so wicked a town ought not to be allowed
to go abroad after dark without an escort. But to
return to our narrative.

Our guileless District-Attorney, with the down of
unsuspecting innocence upon his blushing cheek, failed
to respond to the demands for evidence made upon
him by the Grand Jury. The jurors themselves, there-
fore, assumed experimentally the character of detec-
tives, and the proprietor of the place was soon caught,
of course, in the act of illegal selling. An indictment
was then found. It remained to secure witnesses that
would be willing to go on the stand and testify ; for
while the jurors were willing to visit the place and
satisfy their own minds of the illegality of what was
going on there, they experienced a natural delicacy in
having their names publicly associated with such a re-
sort in the published reports of criminal procedure.
Accordingly instructions were given to the captain of
the precinct to procure the necessary evidence. This
was followed by another touching exhibition of mod-
esty and blushing hesitancy. The fact of it is they all
stand in with each other. It is simply one solid gang
of rascals, half of the gang in office and the other half
out, and the two halves steadily catering to each other
across the official line. The captain declared reiter-

1 6 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

atedly that evidence against McGlory was something
that he could not obtain, till finally the Grand Jury
threatened to indict the captain himself, whereupon
the evidence was at once produced and McGlory con-
victed upon it. All of which is only another way of
saying that the most effective allies which McGlory
had in the prosecution of his vile trade on Fourteenth
Street were the District- Attorney and the captain of
the precinct.

Now it may be said that this method of stating the
case is injudicious ; that it is unwise too sharply to
antagonize the powers that be ; that convictions will
not be obtainable if we make enemies of the men who
exercise police and judicial functions. On the con-
trary, there are only two kinds of argument that exer-
cise the slightest logical urgency on the minds of that
stripe of bandit — one is money and the other is fear.
We shall gain nothing by disguising the facts. To
call things by their right names is always a direct con-
tribution to wholesome effects. A steamer can only
make half-time in a fog. The first necessity of battle
is to have the combatants clearly and easily distin-
guishable by the diversity of their uniform. We want
to know what is what.

Every solid statement of fact is argument. Every
time you deal with things as they are, and name them
in honest, ringing Saxon, you have done something. It
has always been trump-card in the devil's game to
keep things mixed. He mixed them in Paradise, and

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 1/

he has been trying to keep them mixed ever since. If
the powers that are managing this town are supremely
and concertedly bent on encouraging iniquity in order
to the strengthening of their own position, and the en-
largement of their own capital, what, in Heaven's name,
is the use of disguising the fact and wrapping it up in
ambiguous euphemisms ?

Something like a year ago, in company with a num-
ber of gentlemen, I conferred in his office with the
highest municipal dignitary of this city in regard to
the slovenly and the wicked way in which he was pre-
tending to clean our streets. In what I had to say to
him at that time I addressed him as though he were a
man, and as though he had the supreme interests of
this city at heart ; and I have been ashamed of myself
from the crown of my head to the sole of my foot ever
since. Saying nothing about the outrage a man com-
mits upon himself by the conscious falsification of
facts, it does not pay. Neither the devil nor any of
his minions can be caught in a trap. You can hammer
him, but you cannot snare him. Cajolery only lubri-
cates the machinery of his iniquity. Petting him oils
the bearings; minimizes the squeak and maximizes
the velocity. Now this is not spoken in malice. It
is not spoken without a recognition of the fact that
there are men occupying official place in this city
whose chief ambition it is to discharge their duties
incorruptibly. Of course such exceptions are due to
circumstances that it was beyond the power of donii-

2

1 8 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

nant influence to control. We have referred to such
exceptions only for the purpose of anticipating the
charge that our indictment has been harsh and indis-
criminate.

But after all that has been said the great fact re-
mains untouched and uninvalidated, that every effort
that is made to improve character in this city, every
effort to make men respectable, honest, temperate,
and sexually clean is a direct blow between the eyes
of the Mayor and his whole gang of drunken and lech-
erous subordinates, in this sense that while we fight
iniquity they shield and patronize it ; while we try to
convert criminals they manufacture them ; and they
have a hundred dollars invested in manufacturing
machinery to our one invested in converting machinery.
And there is no scheme in this direction too colossal
for their ambition to plan and to push. At this very
time, in reliance upon the energies of evil that domi-
nate this city, there is being urged at Albany the pas-
sage of a bill that will have for its effect to leave
the number of liquor licenses unrestricted, to forbid
all attempts to obtain proof of illicit sales, to legalize
the sale of liquor after one o'clock on Sunday afternoon,
and indeed to keep open bar i6o out of i68 hours of
every week. Sin never gets tired ; never is low-
spirited ; has the courage of its convictions ; never
fritters away its power and its genius pettifogging
over side issues. What voluminous lessons the saints
might learn from the sinners !

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 1 9

We speak of tliese things because it is our business
as the pastor of a Christian church to speak of them.
You know that we are not slow to insist upon keen-
ness of spiritual discernment, or upon the reticent
vigor of a life hid with Christ in God. Piety is the
genius of the entire matter ; but piety, when it fronts
sin, has got to become grit. Salt is a concrete com-
modity, and requires to be rubbed into the very pores
of decay. I scarcely ever move into the midst of the
busier parts of this town without feeling in a pained
way how little of actual touch there is between the
life of the church and the life of the times. As we saw
last Sabbath morning, we must have a consciousness
of God, but the truth complementary to that is that
we must have just as lively a consciousness of the
world we are living in, Men ought to have that, and
women ought to have it too. Nobody that can read
is excusable for not knowing what is transpiring.
And Christians of either sex ought to know it and
ought to want to know it ; ought to feel that it is part
of their own legitimate concern to know it.

We have no criticism to pass on the effort to im-
prove the quality of the civilization in Central Africa,
but it would count more in the moral life of the world
to have this city, where the heart of the country beats,
dominated in its life and government by the ethical
principles insisted on by the Gospel, than to have a
belt of evangelical light a hundred miles broad thrown
clear across the Dark Continent. And the men and

20 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

women that live here are the ones to do it. It is
achievable. What Christianity has done Christianity
can do. And when it is done it is going to be done
by the men and women who stand up and make a
business of the thing, and quit playing with it ; quit
imagining that somehow we are going, by some inde-
scribable means, to drift into a better state of things.
Say all you please about the might of the Holy
Ghost, every step in the history of an ameliorated civ-
ilization has cost just so much personal push. You
and I have something to do about it. If we have a
brain, or a heart, or a purse, and sit still and let
things take their course, making no sign, uttering no
protest, flinging ourselves into no endeavor, the times
will eventually sit in judgment upon us, and they will
damn us. Christianity is here for an object. The
salt is here for a purpose. If your Christianity is not
vigorous enough to help save this country and this
city, it is not vigorous enough to do anything toward
saving you. Reality is not worn out. The truth is
not knock-kneed. The incisive edge of bare-bladed
righteousness will still cut. Only it has got to be
righteousness that is not afraid to stand up, move
into the midst of iniquity and shake itself. The
humanly incarnated principles of this Gospel were
able in three centuries to change the moral com-
plexion of the whole Roman Empire ; and there is
nothing the matter with the Christianity here except
that the incarnations of it are lazy and cowardly, and

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 21

think more of their personal comfort than they do of
municipal decency, and more of their dollars than they
do of a city that is governed by men who are not
tricky and beastly.

But you ask me perhaps what is the use of all this
asseveration and vituperation ; what is the good of
protesting ? What is the good of protesting ? Do
you know what the word Protestant means ? Do you
know that a Protestant is nothing but a protestant ? A
man who protests ? And did not the men who pro-
tested in the sixteenth century do a good deal ? Didn't
they start a volcano beneath the crust of the whole of
European civilization ? Wherever you have a Luther,
a grand stick of human timber, all afire with holy in-
dignation, a man of God, who is not too lymphatic to
get off his knees, or too cowardly to come out of his
closet, confront iniquity, look it in the eye, plaster it
with its baptismal name — such a man can start a ref-
ormation and a revolution every day in the year if
there are enough of them to go around. Why, it
makes no difference how thick the darkness is, a ray
of light will cut it if it is healthy and spry.

Do you know that the newspapers had not been
solidly at work for more than about four weeks before
the dives began to close up ? Why, the truth will
frighten even a policeman, if you will lodge it where
David did when he fired at Goliath. Truth, with ex-
plosive enough behind it, would scare even the captain
of a precinct, and chase the blushes from the callow

22 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

face of the District-Attorney. We have had an ex-
ample of that recently on a larger scale in the matter
of the Louisiana lottery. The whole country was
kindled into a flame of indignation, and the lottery
men bowed before the storm. And, so far as the
North was concerned, it was principally the doing of
one man, too, a man who had a head, heart, and con-
victions, and a pen and lungs to back them.

You see that these things do not go by arithmetic,
nor by a show of hands. A man who is held in the
grip of the everlasting truth and is not afraid is a
young army in himself. That is exactly what the
Bible means when it says that one man shall chase a
thousand. That is the way history has always gone.
That is what the Bible story of Sodom means and the
assurance that ten men would have sufficed to save it.
Not ten that were scared, but ten men that so had
the courage of their convictions, and that so appreci-
ated the priestliness of the office to which they had
been called that the multitudinousness of the dirty
crowd they stood up among neither dashed their con-
fidence nor quenched their testimony.

This is not bringing politics into the pulpit, politics
as such. The particular political stripe of a munici-
pal administration is no matter of our interest, and
none of our business ; but to strike at iniquity is a
part of the business of the Church ; indeed, it is the
business of the Church. It is primarily what the
Church is for, no matter in what connection that sin

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 23

may find itself associated and intermixed. If it fall
properly within the jurisdiction of this church to try
to convert Third Avenue drunkards from their alco-
holism, then certainly it is germane to the functions of
this church to strike the sturdiest blows it is capable
of at a municipal administration whose supreme mis-
sion it is to protect, foster, and propagate alcoholism.
If it is proper for us to go around cleaning up after
the devil, it is proper for us to fight the devil. If it
is right to cure, it is right to prevent, and a thousand
times more economical and sagacious. If we are not,
as a church, transcending our jurisdiction by attempt-
ing to convert Third Avenue prostitutes from their
harlotry, then surely we are within the pale of our
authority as a church when we antagonize and bear
prophetic testimony against an administration the one
necessary outcome of whose policy it is to breed pros-
titutes. Republicans and Democrats we have nothing
to do with, but sin it is our particular province to
ferret out, to publish, and in unadorned Saxon to stig-
matize ; and the more influential the position in which
that sin is intrenched, the more painstaking and pro-
nounced requires to be our analysis, and the more
exempt from hesitancy and euphemism our charac-
terization.

The only object of my appeal this morning has been
to sound a distinct note, and to quicken our Christian
sense of the obligatory relation in which we stand
toward the official and administrative criminality that

24 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

is filthifying our entire municipal life, making New-
York a very hot-bed of knavery, debauchery, and
bestiality, in the atmosphere of which, and at the cor-
rosive touch of which, there is not a young man so
noble, nor a young girl so pure, as not to be in a de-
gree infected by the fetid contamination. There is
no malice in this, any more than there would be if
we were talking about cannibalism in the South Sea
Islands ; only that having to live in the midst of it,
and having to pay taxes to help support it, and hav-
ing nine-tenths of our Christian effort neutralized and
paralyzed by the damnable pressure of it, naturally
our thoughts are strained to a little snugger tension.

I have meant to be unprejudiced in my position, and
conservative in my demands, but, Christian friends, we
have got to have a better world, and we have got to
have a better city than this is, and men who feel
iniquity keenly and who are not afraid to stand up
and hammer it unflinchingly and remorselessly, and
never get tired of hammering it, are the instruments
God has always used to the defeat of Satan and to the
bringing in of a better day. The good Lord take
the fog out of our eyes, the paralysis out of our nerves,
and the limp out of our muscles, and the meanness
out of our praise, show to us our duty, and reveal
to us our superb opportunity, making of every man
and woman among us a prophet, instinct with a long-
ing so intense that we shall not be afraid, loving
righteousness with a loyalty so impassioned that we

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 2$

shall feel the might of it and trust it, and our lives
become this day enlisted in the maintenance of the
right, and thus show that Almighty God is mightier
than all the ranks of Satan that challenge His claims
and dispute His blessed progress.

CHAPTER III.

DISCOURSE OF FEBRUARY 14, REVIEWED AND REVILED,

The discourse recorded in the foregoing chapter
was largely reproduced in the daily journals appearing
the next morning. The editorial comments which it
provoked helped to show the general attitude of the
public mind at the time, and the reader will probably
be pleased to have a number of them quoted at this
point as an essential part of the narrative. Most of
these extracts criticised the discourse adversely ; but,
as in almost every case the journals from which quo-
tations are made have since that time become vigor-
ous and unflinching in their warfare against the same
evils and evil-doers against which the discourse itself
was directed, we have in no instance specified the au-
thorship of the extracts. This book is not written for
the purpose of paying off old scores, but with the de-
sign of giving an honest history of the campaign.

" The ability of the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst, pastor of the
Madison Square Presbyterian Church of New York, in
the use of vituperative epithet, unsparing denunciation,
and intemperate anathema, has been for some time
fully recognized. His public utterances, which have

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 2/

most attracted attention, have been of the malediction
type, whether appHed to theological wrestling with his
associate divines, or used in cursings of municipal au-
thorities. His latest objects of attack are the city of-
ficers of New York, whom he lashes and characterizes as
a ' damnable pack of administrative bloodhounds.'
An uneducated person, covering in public the scope of
the condemnation effort of Dr. Parkhurst last Sunday,
would probably, by our laws, get ' ten dollars, or
thirty. days in the workhouse' at the hands of Judge
Cowing."

" Rev. Dr. Parkhurst, of New York, fired a broadside
at the Tammany tiger last Sunday that has raised
howls from all parts of the Democratic jungle, and a
dozen cubs are snapping and snarling at the good
man's heels. There is little cause for hope that the
ugly brute can yet be driven from his lair, but it will
do no harm to give him an occasional stirring up from
the pulpit or through the press."

" Dr. Parkhurst undertook to say too much — and said
it. His is just the kind of opposition or denunciation
on which public offenders thrive. A mentor or a muz-
zle is what he needs. He mistakes epithets for
epigrams."

" Yesterday he delivered probably the most scathing
denunciation of the present administrative government
of New York, which means Tammany Hall, ever ut-
tered, not excepting political speeches during a cam-
paign. Some portions of this striking address are re-
produced in our columns to-day. They should be con-

28 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMA.W

sidered in connection with Hon. Richard Croker's
article in the current North American Review. Croker
is Grand Sachem of Tammany Hall, and in the arti-
cle referred to, he not only defends Tammany control
of New York, but claims that it ought to be extended,
and brazenly declares war to the knife on any citizens
who, in their love of good government, dare to oppose
Tammany, openly or in secret."

" Dr. Parkhurst's sermon on the iniquity of Tammany
will serve to strengthen the impression that the less
the pulpit has to do with politics the better, even
though it be vice that is struck at. The whole respon-
sibility for setting the world right does not rest with
the clergy. The newspapers are capable of doing a
good deal of preaching themselves, and Dr. Parkhurst
perhaps has invaded their field."

" The Rev. Dr. Parkhurst's vigorous arraignment of
our local administration has aroused the wrath of
those whom he charged with promoting vice and
crime and corruption in this city. There is no reason
to regret the manifestation of distress by anybody
whom the preacher's shafts pierced, but if that is the
only effect produced the gain will be small. Denuncia-
tion of the rulers of New York was not the end of
Dr. Parkhurst's discourse. He designed it rather to
be the means of arousing his hearers and as many other
citizens as possible to a sense of their own responsi-
bility for the fact and consequences of bad govern-
ment. Such utterances are useful because they at
least tend to create and stimulate public sentiment,
and their ultimate value cannot be exactly measured

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 29

bv tlic iinnifdiate effects which they produce. But it
is a shame and a pity that they are so largely wasted.
For it must be acknowledged that the visible results of
vigorous and repeated assaults upon the secret society
by which New York is pillaged and variously maltreated
are not conspicuous.

" Dr. Parkhurst has done as much as one man can do
by a single appeal to arouse the community from this
moral lethargy. What will his sermon accomplish ?
Something, we hope, yet we fear very little. But those
who heard, or have read it, if they are in sympathy
with its purpose, cannot escape the responsibility im-
posed on them. They can make it potent, if they will."

" The habit of some emotional preachers of reflecting
upon the characters and habits of public officials, or
people who do not subscribe to their ultra views on
social questions, got the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst, of the
Madison Square Presbyterian Church in New York, in
trouble. The officials of New York City are talking
about calling upon him to substantiate his charge that
they are a lying, rum-soaked, libidinous lot, before the
Grand Jury. If he fails to do this, then they contem-
plate having him indicted as a slanderer.

" Men in the pulpit have no more right to slander
their fellow-men than anybody else. They are, in
fact, under a greater moral obligation than other men
to refrain from making accusations or repeating state-
ments that they cannot verify under oath. The pulpit
would have more influence in the affairs of life if all
preachers were controlled in their criticisms of public
men and measures by a strict observance of this
obligation.''

30 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

" It is believed that Dr. Parkhurst's remarks to-mor-
row will be less scathing and virulent than those of a
week previous. The doctor has been engaged during
the past few days in picking the bird shot of public
opinion out of his anatomy, and is in a somewhat sub-
dued and chastened spirit, we take it."

" The Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst has given New
Yorkers something to think about. His sermon yester-
day was directed against the evils of the city govern-
ment with extreme vigor. Indeed so fierce were the
speaker's denunciations, so wholesale his charges, and
so reckless his insinuations, that it may be questioned
whether the sermon will produce much effect upon
thinking men. New York is not well governed, but
probably the city knows it as well as Mr. Parkhurst."

" We hope that every good citizen of New York will
read the admirable report of the Rev. Dr. Charles
H. Parkhurst's rousing sermon yesterday morning at
the Madison Square Presbyterian Church.

" It was the severest indictment of this Tammany-
debauched municipal government that has been made.
It is a good sign when the ministers of this city fmd
time and tongue to denounce our monstrous misgov-
ernment. More than one eloquent preacher has of
late raised his voice in protest against the iniquities
with which we are surrounded and the oppression under
which we live.

" The slumbering indignation of the people is begin-
ning to break forth like a volcano, and its echoes will
not die out until the rascals have been turned out."

OUR I'IGHT WITH TAMMANY 3 1

'' I'he Rev. Dr. ParkhursL 'look on dreadful' last
Sunday, ^^'itll well feigned virtuous indignation he
rhetorically assaulted the whole municipal outfit,
plainly stating that the officials, from Mayor Grant
down to the latest Dago appointment in Tom Bren-
nan's street-cleaning force, were the silent partners of
all the enterprising criminals in town.

" Dr. Parkhurst would be entitled to all the way from
five to five hundred years' penal servitude for such an
assertion, if it were to be levelled at specific individuals.
The city government of New York may not be free
from corruption, but the bulk of our officials are gen-
tlemen of character and honesty.

" Dr. Parkhurst is not a safe guide.

*' If he knows no more of Christianity than he does of
politics he will be likely to lead his flock of sheep into
a moral quagmire, and, perhaps, to a certain frequently
mentioned bottomless pit.

" The reverend doctor should have remembered the
commandment, ' Thou shalt not bear false witness
against thy neighbor,' an offence not far removed
from murder, since it may kill a reputation and ruin
a life.

" Invective to be effective should be pointed with the
shining arrow of truth."

" Tammany Hall still keeps up its pretence of being
inexpressibly shocked at the ' sad degradation ' of the
pulpit by Dr. Parkhurst of the Madison Square Pres-
byterian Church. It w^ould suit Tammany exactly if
the pulpit were to keep its artillery trained on the
wickedness of man before the flood, or try to reduce
and capture the Tov/er of Babel, or to blow daylight

32 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

through the persecuting Emperor Nero. Indeed Tam-
many does not care if it comes down to as modern a
theme as the sceptical chestnuts of the eighteenth
century.

" But when it begins on nineteenth century crime,
corruption, and public robbery, Tammany's delicate
moral sense, Tammany's exquisite religious tact, Tam-
many's fervor for the gospel of mediaeva' theology is
aroused, and the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst is unanimously
pronounced — by Tammany — a shameless debaser and
abuser of the pulpit."

" These are specific charges. If they are true, the
public officers concerned ought to be impeached and
imprisoned as the abettors of crime, the partners of
criminals, false servants of the people, and characters
dangerous to the community and disgraceful to civiliza-
tion. As they are specific charges, it is, of course,
incumbent on this preacher to sustain them with
specific facts and proofs.

" He made them publicly, and uttered them within a
house of Divine worship, as if they were the words of
God Himself. He denounced the officers of the mu-
nicipal government as a whole, and these officers in
particular, as utterly vile and rotten, the fosterers of
crime instead of its prosecutors. Either he spoke
from knowledge and with precise facts to support his
infamous charges, or he is a vile liar and slanderer,
who should be driven from the Christian pulpit and
subjected by the civil law to the criminal punishment
he deserves.

" Let Dr. Parkhurst, therefore, be called upon to sub-
stantiate his charges before the Grand Jury, so that

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 33

the men he denounces thus specifically may be in-
dicted, tried, and punished ; or if he is unable to pre-
sent any facts justifying them, let him be indicted,
tried, and punished himself as a wicked, malicious,
reckless, and criminal slanderer.

" District-Attorney Nicoll owes it to the preacher, to
himself, and to the interests of justice generally, to
bring to account the Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst, D. D.
His charges as uttered from the Madison Square
pulpit have been published to all the world, and as
coming from such a source they will be believed very
widely and cause great damage to the reputation of
the individuals assailed and of the community which
keeps them in office. Hence it is the imperative duty
of the District-Attorney to take proceedings to make
Dr. Parkhurst prove his words or be made criminally
answerable for them."

" A general denunciation like that of Dr. Parkhurst
creates indignation in the breasts of such officials, and
leads to reprisals, which generate sympathy. In this
way reaction is brought about, which negatives the
good aimed at by the preacher. // is also an injury to
religion, because it lowers the public estimate of the judg-
ment ivhich issues from the pulpit. We are far from
thinking that a clergyman should not denounce wicked-
ness in high or low places, whether the parties be in
official or private station, but such denunciations
should be calm and dispassionate, and, above all, they
should be free from exaggeration ; for, unless this be
the case, they do more harm than good."

" It is not at all likely that such sermons as that
preached by Dr. Parkhurst in Madison Square Presby-
3

34 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

terian Church, Sunday morning last, make the world
any better ; and it is certain that such violent and
intemperate utterances from the pulpit do the Church
positive injury.

" It is not news that Tammany is worldly and wicked,
but it is not becoming in a minister of the gospel to
loudly proclaim from the pulpit that 'they are a lying,
perjured, rum-soaked, and lascivious lot.' "

" The Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst ought to read and
ponder that one of the commandments which con-
demns the bearing of false witness, and that passage
which has something to say about ' railing accusa-
tions.' He will do well to reflect upon the impropriety
of extravagant overstatement, the sin of exaggeration,
and the care a clergyman should take to know what he
is talking about before indulging in the intemperate
abuse and denunciation of his fellow-men. There is
much to criticise in New York municipal government,
but nothing to excuse so violent an outburst of vitu-
peration as that which Mr. Parkhurst preached for a
sermon yesterday. A delicate regard for truth and
justice is as important in the pulpit as elsewhere."

" One Parkhurst, who bears by courtesy and custom
the title 'reverend,' and preaches the gospel accord-
ing to St. Billingsgate from the pulpit of the Madison
Square Presbyterian Church, New York, attacked all
the officials of that city last Sunday, calling them col-
lectively * a damnable pack of administrative blood-
hounds,' 'polluted harpies,' and 'a lying, perjured,
rum-soaked, and libidinous lot." Furthermore, the
reverend gentleman, standing under the consecrated

OUR FIGHT wrrii tammany 35

roof of the holy edifice, declared that 'every effort to
make men respectable, honest, temperate, and sexually
clean is a direct blow between the eyes of the Mayor
and his whole gang of drunken and lecherous subor-
dinates.' There was a time when reckless vitupera-
tion and ' slangwhanging' of this sort disgraced the
editorial columns of the press and afforded satirists
theme for stinging caricatures."

To these editorial criticisms I will only add three or
four extracts from reported interviews with as many
city officials.

Police Captain said

" That it was a shame for a minister of the Gospel
to disgrace the pulpit by such utterances.

" When he says that the heads of the departments
in this city are a lying, drunken class he deliberately
tells a falsehood. No man of good judgment would
utter such a thing about men who are so temperate,
reliable, and honorable."

" Such intemperate utterances," said Public Works
Commissioner

" Answer themselves. They have no weight with
sensible people. It is doubtless true that the munici-
pal government is open to criticism, as everything
human must be. It is even possible that abuses exist
in some of the departments ; but if we are to have re-
forms they can never be brought about by such pal-
pable misstatements of facts. This minister of the
Gospel shows a most uncharitable spirit in his intern-

36 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

perate ravings, and violates the first law of Christianity,
by stating what he knows to be false, if he knows any-
thing about it."

Another public official indicated his jealous concern
for the cause of Christianity in these terms :

" Dr. Parkhurst violates the command which says,
' Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neigh-
bor.' His discourse was unworthy of the man and of
the place. It is just such utterances that belittle the
influence of the clergy and retard the cause of Chris-
tianity."

It is a singular, but by no means inexplicable coinci-
dence, that those officials that are most in league with
crime, and those journals that are most distinctly rep-
resentative of the gambling-table and the brothel,
were the ones that in their criticisms most profusely
affected the phrases of piety and wept the bitterest
tears over the dishonor I had put upon the pulpit and
the Christian ministry.

Commissioner of the Police Board said :

" Ordinarily, language of this kind should be passed
over without notice, but the harsh tone of Mr. Park-
hurst's sermon is unchristianlike, and if allowed to go
unnoticed would be a tacit admission of guilt.

" Heretofore, I believe. Dr. Parkhurst has been de-
voting himself to preaching the Gospel and doing
good, but when he stoops to such abuse of public offi-
cials, and that from the pulpit, he ought to lose caste
among his own listeners.

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 37

"The language used by the gentleman is vulgar. It
is a libel upon the city when he says that every crime
has its price. If such a tiling as protection by the
police does exist, it is his duty to come forward with
the information.

"I should not be surprised, however, if this is not
the beginning of a series of tirades finding its nucleus
in a new political movement intended to antagonize
and combat a certain political organization. I will,
however, be charitable, and admit that Dr. Parkhurst
has been imposed upon by some people who have come
to him with stories of the alleged deplorable condition
of our city."

Police Commissioner said :

"Everything the doctor said was untrue. It would
seem as if it were meant as a political movement in
opposition to Tammany."

If there was any doubt in his mind then, as to what
it " meant," he is probably well over his uncertainty
now.

CHAPTER IV

REBUKED BY THE GRAND JURY

In my discourse of February 14th, I had said noth-
ing that was not true, but I had said a good many
things that I was not at that time in a condition to
prove. The air was full of feathers and fur, indicat-
ing that a variety of flying fowl and creeping beast
had been hit; but I had waked up a whole jungle of
teeth-gnashing brutes, and it was a question whether
the hunter was going to bag the game or the game
make prey of the hunter.

The demand was openly made that I should either
prove my charges or be prosecuted for libel. Legal
talent, as eminent as any the town afforded, was im-
mediately put at my gratuitous service in case libel
suits should be pressed. It soon began to be ru-
mored that the District-Attorney was planning to ex-
periment on me before the Grand Jury. Of course
the City Hall authorities appreciated the truth of the
charges I had made, and that was just what was the
matter ; and if they had supposed that I could sub-
stantiate my charges, the thing they would most
studiously and affectionately have done would have

OUR FIGHT wrrii tammany 39

been to let me alone. But they were of the opinion
(and the fact justified the opinion) that I had not for-
tified myself with the details of legal proof necessary
to substantiate my charges, and they were willing to
take the risk of applying the mild inquisition of the
Grand Jury, knowing that the secrecy under which
that tribunal conducts its seances would help to se-
cure suspected officials from inconvenience in case it
should turn out that I knew more than they supposed.
It is impossible not to remark, parenthetically, what a
convenient arrangement a Grand Jury may prove to
be, if its members can be " trusted," and there is a
problematic field of inquiry which the District-Attor-
ney's office would like to have traversed without in-
volving itself or its friends in any considerable peril.

Naturally enough, a subpoena was issued requiring
my attendance before the Grand Jury. This was on
the 23d of February. It was not as difficult to get
before the Grand Jury then as it has been a good
many times since. The atmosphere of the room was
distinctly uncongenial. I was not able to inform the
Jury that the charges which I had made had their
foundation in anything other than uncontradicted
newspaper statements. Whether they said that it was
an indictable offence for me to accuse officials of
criminality with which reputable journals systemati-
cally charged them without being indicted, I do not
remember, — that is, I am not at liberty to repeat. The
sum and substance of it all was that I could not swear

40 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

as of my own knowledge that the District-Attorney
had lived an immoral life, that police officers were
blackmailers, that police justices encouraged bunco-
steering and abortion, or that the entire Tammany or-
ganization was not a disguised wing of the Prohibition
Party ; and the foreman politely indicated to me that
further attendance on my part would not be required.

As I recall that session it occurs to me to say that
while I did not give them a great deal, I learned a
lot. I was distinctly worsted ; cheerful, but whipped.
As I withdrew from that august presence I recorded
in my heart a solemn vow, five years long, that I
would never again be caught in the presence of the
enemy without powder and shot in my gun-barrel. It
was severe schooling, but I shall be wiser clear into the
next world for what I learned on the 23d of February.

One week later, on the first day of March, the
Grand Jury issued its presentment, which, while not
mentioning the name of the offender, was evidently
enough designed as a rebuke for the terms in which I
had referred to the District-Attorney in particular,
and to the members of the municipal administration
in general.

The text of the presentment was as follows :

To the Court of General Sessions of the Peace of the

City and County of JVeiv York :
To the Hoji. Randolph B. Marline, Presiding Jtidge :

During the present term of this court there were
published in the journals of this city, as the accounts

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 41

of a discourse delivered from the pulpit of one of
our churches, certain accusations against the charac-
ters and fitness of the officials charged with the duty
of administering our municipal government.

The imputations were not limited to any particular
branch of the city government, but in sweeping terms
condemned the entire body of officials in language so
lacking in specification, however, that, with one excep-
tion, no cognizance could be taken of them.

One- assertion, however, was sufliciently specific as
to warrant attention by this body, namely, the declara-
tion to the effect that the District- Attorney had, in
November, 1891, refused to supply, although in his
power to do so, evidence required by the Grand Jury
then in session, for the purpose of founding a prose-
cution against a notorious and disreputable resort, the
proprietor of which has since been convicted and is
now undergoing the penalty of the law ; and that by
such refusal and neglecting to proceed against the pro-
prietor of such resort, the District-Attorney had en-
couraged him in its conduct and maintenance.

Soon after the publication of these statements the
District-Attorney requested us to send for the author
of them and ascertain their truth or falsity, a request
which we were not slow to grant, inasmuch as the
District- Attorney is the legal adviser of the Grand Jury,
and necessarily brought into daily association with it.

We therefore caused to attend and be examined
before us the author of the statements in question,
and all other persons who could throw light on their
truth or falsity, and, after a thorough investigation,
desire to present to the court as follows :

We find the author of the charges had no evidence

42 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

lipon which to base them, except alleged newspaper
reports, which in the form published had no founda-
tion in fact.

We find that no request was ever made to the Dis-
trict-Attorney to supply the Grand Jury with any evi-
dence in the matter named, and that upon the trial
of the indictment the District-Attorney presented to
the court evidence collected wholly by himself, and
that a conviction was obtained by him without refer-
ence to the testimony taken before the Grand Jury.

We desire further to express our disapproval and
condemnation of unfounded charges of this character,
which, whatever may be the motive in uttering them,
can only serve to create a feeling of unwarranted dis-
trust-in the minds of the community with regard to
the integrity of public officials, and tends only to hin-
der the prompt administration of justice.

Dated New York, February 29, 1892.

(Signed) Henry S. Herrman, Foreman.

D. W. O'Halloran, Secrctaj-y.

After the Grand Jury's presentment Judge Martine
made a statement, of which the following is a copy :

Mr. Foreman and Gentlemen of the Grand Jury :
It is gratifying indeed to find that your body has
seen fit to make some investigation of the attack, such
as was made in the public press by a certain gentle-
man in this community. Coming, as it does, from a
clergyman, coming from one who naturally, from his
calling, has some standing and repute in this com-
munity, it is quite natural that some credence
should be given to the statement, and quite fair

OUR FIC.IIT WITH TAMMANY 43

to assLuno that a person of that character would
not make any unwarranted and unfounded attacks,
and the public might assume that there was some
basis for the attack, or was at the time it was made,
when it had gained such publicity in the public press.

It was an attack upon the of^cials in this commu-
nity. An attack of this character has the effect usually
to bring officials into contempt and into disrepute, but
when it is suggested that they are guilty of malfeas-
ance and misconduct in office, and suggested that they
failed to discharge the duties of office, and had gone
a step further, to refuse to aid or assist those who
wanted to bring about an investigation of crime, then
it becomes a serious accusation calling for an investi-
gation by such a body as yours.

After the first inquiry — after the first suggestion of
official inquiry — the people came to comprehend that
there was no foundation for the accusation, and it is
indeed gratifying to find that after your investigation
there was nothing but rumor, nothing but hearsay, to
base any accusation upon. It is an easy matter to
bring a public officer into disrepute, and then a difficult
matter for a public officer to reinstate himself in the
confidence of the public. Gentlemen, in this case I
think you have done what you should have done. The
District-.\ttorney of this county was your legal ad-
viser. You confined your examination as to an in-
vestigation of the attacks made against him.

The person who made the accusations against him
must have some reason of his own ; either a desire for
public notoriety, or he may have believed it might result
in some general good, or what not — what his motives
may have been I can't say ; but it may well seem, a

44 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

person occupying his station, a person in his calling,
should be careful before making such an accusation un-
less he had some just foundation for it.

The foregoing from the Grand Jury and from the
Bench was intended as a quietus, and was so inter-
preted by the City Officials, by Tammany Hall, and by
the public journals published in its interests. Brief
editorial extracts from half a dozen or so of such
journals, are the following :

" The best employment to which the Rev. Dr. Park-
hurst can now devote himself is prolonged prayer and
repentance to atone for the grievous sin of which he
has been guilty. An appropriate place wherein to
give him the opportunity to subject himself to such
spiritual mortification would be a penitentiary cell."

" It appears now, however, that the Rev. Dr. Park-
hurst is the sort of clergyman with which the public
has been already too familiar in times past ; a kind of
political pulpiteer who pounds ' the pulpit, drum eccle-
siastic,' for the sake of filling the public ear and draw-
ing a big audience, or congregation as he would call
it, to his discourses. This takes the place of inspira-
tion from the Bible and the ministerial work of 'bring-
ing sinners to repentance,' and the result of it would
be, in any event, to bring the pulpit into contempt."

" We presume that New York is governed about as
badly as the other cities of the State, and that is saying
a great deal; but it cannot he governed as badly as
certain metropolitan papers represent, unless New

OUK FICIIT Willi TAMMANY 45

York is a community of idiots and criminals. When
we see in a New York newspaper a long list of men,
responsible for the oovernnvjnt of the city, with
charges appended to the name of each varying from
murder in the first degree to larceny from the person,
we no longer shudder at the awfulness of the exposi-
tion ; we laugh at its absurdity."

" These well-meaning people who go off half cocked
are a -terror and a stumbling-block to every good
cause. They hastily generalize, make rash and reck-
less statements and then are compelled to eat their
words. They make themselves ridiculous and their
future utterances arc discounted about fifty per cent."

" It was this sort of thing that misled Dr. Parkhurst.
He no tloubt meant well. He saw certain grave
charges in the public prints against the integrity of
city ofiicials, and believed it to be his duty as a min-
ister to start a crusade. But the specific charges he
made, on newspaper evidence, were baseless, and his
crusade turns out a fiasco."

It was while matters were in this troubled condi-
tion (on the very day in fact, that the Presentment
against me was adopted), that, in company with Mr.
Moss, counsel for the Society for the Prevention of
Crime, and Frank Lewis, our detective, I visited the
District-Attorney at his oftice and asked him to aid
me ii* bringing a number of excise cases before the
Grand Jury. These cases, six or seven in number,
which had been prepared with a good deal of care,
were against liquor-dealers who were known to have

46 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

a good deal of "pull " with the authorities, and whom
therefore, it was presumable, neither the District-At
torney nor the Police Justices would jump at tht
chance of inconveniencing or convicting. The names
of these liquor-dealers were furnished us by a gen-
tleman who, although in close intimacy with many
members of the organization we were fighting, has,
nevertheless, been in constant and silent alliance with
ourselves, and to whom we have now for nearly three
years been under continuous obligation. Indeed it
may here be remarked that a part, at least, of the ac-
curacy and assurance with which we have been able
to speak touching the condition of the Police Depart-
ment and the Municipal Administration, is due to the
testimony of parties who were either close to Tam-
many or even inside of it, but who secretly desired its
overthrow.

But to return to our excise cases. It made very
little difference to us whether we were able to obtain
conviction or not ; cases of this kind were certain to
win publicity through the press ; and the more con-
spicuous the case, if only our proofs were not at fault,
the greater would be the effect produced upon the
popular mind if the case went against us : for from
first to last our object has not been to convict crimi-
nals so much as to convince the public that under the
existing condition of things, criminals run little or no
risk of being convicted.

It was a Monday morning that we three went into

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 4/

the att()rne3^'s office. On entering, there was precipi-
tated a condition of awkwardness in which there were
combined in about equal degree, elements of the sub-
lime and the ridiculous. Without any excessive dis-
play of hospitality on his. part, but with his eyes glued
upon me with an expression of amusement and dis-
pleasure, I approached the District-Attorney saying:

"'Mr. District-Attorney, the report has emanated
from your office two or three times lately that you
find it difificult to procure evidence sufficient to con-
vict in cases of violation of the excise laws, etc. Now,
we should love to be of assistance to you, and I have
with me a number of cases of violations that occurred
yesterday upon which we have secured important evi-
dence. I am here to ask if you will be so kind as to
bring us before the Grand Jury this morning and give
us an opportunity to present these cases to them.'

" The District-Attorney said in reply :

" ' Dr. Parkhurst, I refuse to have any official commu-
nication with you till you have withdrawn the falsehoods
that you have spoken against me from your pulpit.'

"I said to him, 'That being the case I will ask our
counsel, Mr. Moss, to confer with you in my stead,'
and put in Mr. Moss's hands the list of cases, with the
request that he should turn them over to Mr. Nicoll.
He did so. Mr. Nicoll glanced at them, gave them
back to Mr. Moss, saying that he did not care to keep
them, that he would see that we came before the Grand
Jury and that they could do with the cases as they liked."

48 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

I have been thus expHcit in the recital of this scene
for the reason that so much hung upon it. There
were two attitudes which Mr. Nicoll might have as-
sumed : he could have done precisely the thing that
he did do, avail of the resources of his office to em-
barrass the efforts that were being made to secure the
enforcement of law ; or he could have jumped to
the altitude of his opportunity and said : " Yes, Dr.
Parkhurst ; your object is identical with that of this
office. You are jealous for the enforcement of law,
and so are we. Anything that we can do to strength-
en your hands shall be done. I will do all I can to
make access to the Grand Jury easy and satisfactory
to you and to your Society." Had Nicoll taken that
attitude, the probability is that little more, compara-
tively speaking, would have have been heard of our
movement. The victory which we have gained has
not been gained so much by our fighting as by the in-
judicious precipitancy with which our movement has
been opposed. Like a bird, we slid up on the wind
that was blowing in our faces. If Nicoll had known
that morning, what kind of stuff the Society for the
Prevention of Crime was made of, and had had five
minutes to recover from the personal prostration
from which, since the 14th of February he had been
suffering, his native shrewdness would have gained the
better of his personal pique and he would have seized
the opportunity and thrown me.

CHAPTER V

COLLECTING EVIDENCE

The charges made from my pulpit on the 14th of
February I was unable, at that time, to substantiate.
They were founded on rumor. I was twitted upon
that fact from the District-Attorney's office, the Grand-
Jury room, and the Judge's bench. Probably not one
of those who made ofificial jest of my discomfiture but
knew that all which I charged was true, and that if I
had charged a great deal more, it would have been
equally true. That, however, did not at all help the
Society for the Prevention of Crime or its cause.
There were only two alternatives open ; either the
battle must stop where it was, or I must be able to
say " I know." The challenge had been thrown
down, and I must either pick it up or allow the cause
to go by default.

The power to stand up and say " I know " would
have to be earned by a tour of personal inspection,
and how much that means it is not part of our pres-
ent purpose to relate, save to say that it afforded con-
fessed enemies a point of assault, and gave to doubt-
ing friends material for no end of misgiving.
4

50 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

It has been said that it would have served the same
purpose if the work had been done by the Society's
detectives, — a position which we blankly deny. It is
an incontrovertible fact that the statement of a paid
detective is always discounted. No matter what his
history and antecedents may have been, his salaried
evidence is taken with an allowance. It is argued
that such a tour of inspection was itself degrading,
and it ought, for that reason, to have been made by
my agents. It was against objections and criticisms
of this kind that I published, through the columns of
the newspapers, an address to the citizens of New
York City, under date of April 13th, 1892, and it will
be proper to insert extracts from that address at this
point.

" I regret the egotism that seems involved in pre-
suming to address so broad a readership. I trust,
however, that I shall be acquitted of any presumptu-
ous intention, more especially, as up to this time I have
not penned a single word, either in acknowledgment
of the support that has been accorded me, or in
reply to the criticisms that have been passed upon
me.

" Even now my object is not so much to defend the
methods which I have seen it wise to adopt, as to put
in distinct shape the one object toward which I am
working, whether as preacher or as President of the
Society for the Prevention of Crime.

" In the sermon which was preached from my pulpit

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 5 1

on the 14th of February last, the one point urged was
that one of the greatest difficulties which the church
has to encounter in the prosecution of its work is the
license which is municipally allowed to vice. This
was immediately met on the part of municipal authori-
ties with a tempest of raillery which culminated in the
presentment of the February Grand Jury. I was told
that my charges were general, that I had no idea
what I was talking about, and that the whole tendency
of such vituperation was to bring the government into
disgrace. . . .

" The evidence which, with the aid of detectives and
friends, I was easily able to collect, was secured with
the distinct end of showing, by unimpeachable testi-
mony, something of the extent, infamy, and publicity
of certain crimes, with the necessary inference that if a
police force as competent as ours is conceded to be,
and in the possession of all those legal powers known
to be accorded to it, fails to hold such crimes in stern
check, it can only be because of having entered into
some evil alliance with them. It was not at all a mat-
ter between me and any individual parties. When I
went before the Grand Jury with two hundred and
eighty-four affidavits I said, ' Gentlemen, I have no
interest in the conviction of these parties. Evidence
has not been secured against them for the sake of in-
ducing you to indict them. My object has been solely
to secure in the general mind an indictment against
the Police Department.' . . .

52 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

"As to criticisms that have been passed, even by my
friends, I want to say that I give them full credit for
sincerity in all their strictures. At the same time it is
always to be remembered that it is a thousand times
easier to criticise another's action than it is to take
action one's self, and if while I was planning how I
could do something to help the cause some one else
had devised a better method than the one I was work-
ing out, I am sure I should have been only too happy
to strike into it, and work at his side and under his
lead.

" It is claimed that work of so dirty a character I
ought to have hired some one to do for me. I loathe
the suggestion and I loathe the craven spirit that
prompts it. If it was vicious in me to visit those
places myself it would have been equally vicious, with
an added element of damnable cowardice, to get some
one to do it for me. No such system of ethics as
that has either the moral vigor or the intellectual
acumen to bore into the heart of existing corrup-
tion."

The first point to prove, then, was that criminal prac-
tices were being conducted throughout the town in a
manner of outrageous openness that afforded p7-ima
facie evidence that there was collusion between police
and criminals. Individual criminals, as such, we had
no interest in. We were neither trying to convict
them, nor were we any more trying to convert them.
Naturally, the criminals became our enemies, and con-

OUR FiGirr WITH tammanv 53

tinued so until our real intent was understood. Just
as naturally the Police Justices, the Police Commis-
sioners, and the Superintendent of Police, together
with their journalistic representatives, lost no oppor-
tunity to taunt us with having substituted the court-
'room for the Bible and hymn-book in our contention
with the fallen and the unfortunate. Divver, Byrnes,
Martin and Sheehan knew exactly as well then as they
do to-day that our attack was upon them, and not upon
the petty criminals within their respective dioceses;
and their voluminous discharge of hypocritical drivel
had no other object than to confuse the issue and dis-
credit the Society and myself, its representative. Our
work, then, was not upon the bawdy-house, but upon
the Tammany Police Department, through the bawdy-
house ; and in spite of the Commissioners, the Super-
intendent, and the Captains, we have won.

The necessity for such a tour of observation was, to
my mind, so transparently necessary that it did not
seem advisable to seek any considerable amount of
counsel upon the matter. I conferred repeatedly
with Mr. David J. Whitney, who was one of the most
aggressive members of the Society, and who, through
long warfare with the evil geniuses of our city, had
made himself an expert in all that concerned the So-
ciety's work. He was a man who was very quick in
his judgments, but exceedingly liable to be right. He
agreed with me that there would be tremendous ad-
vantage in being able to speak of the city from out of

54 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

my own personal acquaintance with it, but omitted no
pains to convince me of the poisoned arrows of malig-
nity to which I should be exposed if I made the vent-
ure. Having decided that destiny was a thing from
which there is no escape, it remained to find a safe and
congenial spirit whom I could take as my companion.
More hinged upon this matter than I could then dis-
tinctly foresee ; it was necessary that such companion
should be a man of unimpeachable personal charac-
ter, and of an established position in community. Of
course it was necessary, also, that he should undertake
the work not out of any hasty or uncertain impulse,
but purely out of devotion to the cause which the
work represented.

While this matter was still being considered, I was
called upon one evening, early in March '92, by a young
man who had recently become a member of my con-
gregation, and whom I had noticed in the church, but
whom I had never personally met. Whether he had
divined what was in my own mind, I do not know to
this day, but he said that he had come to tell me that
if there was anything he could do to assist me in the
enterprise recently undertaken, he was unreservedly
at my service. My good friend John Langdon Erving
little realized all that was involved in his noble offer,
or all that it was going to cause him in the way of
criticism and obloquy before his heroic service was
completed ; but suffice it to say that his offer of as-
sistance was accepted and a general plan of operations

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 55

outlined that same evening. I cannot let this oppor-
tunity pass of rendering to my friend Erving the
tribute of my gratitude. If in connection with this
whole warfare there have been words of invective and
insinuations too dastardly and devilish to be forgiven,
either in this world or the world to come, they were
words that were spoken upon Erving. His was the
manly stuff, however, that took no detriment from
calumny, and I can speak no larger word of him than
to say that without him, or a man as strong and noble-
spirited as he, the efforts initiated in the spring of
'92 must have issued in failure.

Of course, I have no purpose of publishing here the
details of those three weeks which, in the company of
Erving and under the guidance of detective Charles
W. Gardner, I spent in traversing the avenues of our
municipal hell. The details have been given to the
public through the press, and by no journal more pro-
lifically or with more of zest than by the one that has
affected the deepest anguish at the vast number of
pure minds that have been sullied by the repulsive dis-
closures.

Nevertheless, in full view of all that has passed,
and in spite of all in the way of vicious criticism and
honest misunderstanding that has ensued, I still am
obliged to say that the course I took was the only
course that could have been taken ; and that under
the like circumstances I would repeat precisely the
same policy. No rhetoric that I might have availed

56 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

of, and no theories of the situation that I might have
promulgated, would ever have begun to take the place
of my being able to say " I know." I may be per-
mitted to say that when I stood in my pulpit shortly
after, and on the strength of my own personal knowl-
edge repeated in more of detail the charges for which
I had just been " presented," I felt, clear to the centre
of my being, that I was in a position from which no
District-Attorney, no Grand Jury, and no Justice Mar-
tine, or any of his ilk, could ever shake me.

There is one feature of our tour of inspection that
has not, perhaps been sufficiently indicated. We
entered no houses that were not easy of access ; we
were not trying to prove the existence of evil resorts,
but were seeking to connect the police with those
resorts by showing the fearless and flagrant way
in which they were being run. We went into no
places that were not recognized as notorious ; into
no places that were not perfectly known by the
patrolman on the beat, provided only he knew any-
thing that was on his beat. Indeed our great anxi-
ety, particularly after it began to be rumored that
I was engaged in this investigation, was lest, in pro-
tection of their criminal interests, the police should
arrange to raid some such resort while our visit upon
it was in progress. In fact, almost the last and one
of the vilest dens I entered was visited by the police-
man while we were still in the house, and when we de-
scended the steps he was standing guard over it. A

OUR FIGHT wrril TAMMANY 57

while subsequent to this, ami in another part of the
town, a gentleman who was in our interest, in order to
satisfy himself of the personal understanding existing
between the police and criminal resorts, accepted the
offer of a patrolman to stand as sentinel at the front
door so long as he should remain in, and until he re-
appeared. The policeman did so. Because of the
connection of the madame of that house with the
Gardner case, our friend suggested to the patrolman
that the notoriety of the place would make it a danger-
ous one to enter. The blue-coat said, "Not at all."
It was then that our friend asked him if he would be
so good as to keep guard over the house during his
visit there, so as to notify him in case there should be
signs of a raid. "Certainly," said our observant guar-
dian of the public peace.

And we made it our purpose not only to visit places
that were run with a vicious flagrancy that proved
police connivance, not to say protection, but to ac-
quaint ourselves with the very worst thing that was
to be known and seen. If the thing was to be done
it was going to be done thoroughly ; or, to use the
illustration employed by Judge Noah Davis a few
weeks later, if I had got to enter hell, I was going to
find its most hellish spot. My constant instruction to
(lardner was, "Take me to the most notorious resort
you know of." There had been dens of even more
nefarious character than any we visited, worse than
anything hinted at in the first chapter of Romans or

58 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

mentioned in connection with Gomorrah ; but they
were not open in March of 1892 — if they had been we
should have visited them. Having settled in my own
mind my policy of action, the depth and foulness of
the path over which the pursuance of that policy
would lead me ceased to be an element in the question.

CHAPTER VI

AFFIDAVITS IN THE PULPIT

Intimation had been given that the gauntlet thrown
down by the February Grand Jury would be taken up
by us in my pulpit on the morning of March 13th. The
ordinary furniture of the pulpit, in the shape of Bible
and Hymn-books, was on that occasion supplemented
by a copious package of affidavits. The discourse was
preached from the text, " The wicked walk on every
side, when the vilest men are exalted" (Psalm xii. 8),
and with few modifications was as follows :

It will be well for us — you and me — to come to a
full and frank understanding with each other, at the
very threshold of our discussion this morning, as to
the true scope of the campaign in which we are en-
gaged, and in which, unless all signs are misleading,
the hearts of increasing numbers are day by day be-
coming enlisted. What was spoken from this pulpit
four weeks ago was spoken with a distinct intent,
from which we have not in the meantime swerved,
and from which we do not in coming time propose to
swerve, whatever in the way of obstruction, vitupera-
tion, or intimidation may be officially or unofficially

60 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

launched against us : for the one exclusive aim of the
movement is to probe, to characterize, and to lay bare
the iniquity that municipally antagonizes and neu-
tralizes the efforts which a Christian pulpit puts forth
to make righteousness the law of human life, individ-
ually, socially, and civilly. So that I apprehend my
function as a preacher of righteousness as giving me
no option in the matter. It is not left for me to say
whether I shall do it or shall not do it, but to go
straightway about my business without fear or favor.

It is important to recognize just here the purely
moral intention of the crusade as security against its
becoming complicated with considerations that stand
aloof from the main point. A great many civic efforts
have been made here and elsewhere that have resulted
in nothing, for the single and sufficient reason that
they have been side-tracked, switched off on to some
collateral issue, mortgaged to some competitive in-
terest. Suggestions, insinuations, criticisms that have
reached me from various sources, some through the
press, some through personal correspondence, make it
incumbent upon me to declare that what has been
said, and what will continue to be said, proceeds in no
slightest degree from sympathy with or interest in any
specific policy, whether political, reformatory, or re-
ligious, looking to the reconstruction of our municipal
life.

I do not speak as a Republican or a Democrat, as a
Protestant or a Catholic, as an advocate of prohibi-

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 6l

tion, or as an advocate of license. I am moved, so help
me Almighty God, by the respect which I have for the
Ten Commandments, and by my anxiety as a preacher
of Jesus Christ, to have the law of God regnant in in-
dividual and social life ; so that I antagonize our ex-
isting municipal administration, because I believe,
with all the individual exceptions frankly conceded
four weeks ago, that administration to be essentially
corrupt, interiorly rotten, and in all its combined
tendency and effect to stand in diametric resistance
to all that Christ and a loyally Christian pulpit repre-
sent in the world.

Now there is another diversion, side-tracking de-
vice, that has been operated and that has been oper-
ated industrially, and which, as it seems to me, has
had for its object to confuse the general mind, and so
to break the force of the indictment made here four
weeks ago. I refer, of course, to the presentment
made by the February Grand Jury. In that present-
ment the substance of the censure passed upon the of-
fending clergyman was that he uttered charges against
an official founded upon newspaper reports. Why, I said
at the time that it was founded upon newspaper re-
port. So far as related to the McGlory matter, it
was a hypothetical accusation and was exhibited as a
hypothetical accusation. If the papers which pub-
lished the story at the time, and which, so far as I
could learn, had remained for six weeks uncontra-
dicted, misrepresented the case, why then my accusa-

62 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

tion, so far as related to the McGlory matter, tumbled
with it, and that is all of it involved in the very terms
in which I then recognized the newspapers as my
authority. If I had failed to indicate my authority,
or if I had failed to indicate that so far as it related
to the McGlory business, my charges stood or fell
with that authority, the case would have been dif-
ferent ; but, as it is, there seems to be in the action
of the Grand Jury a lack of that frankness which I
certainly had a right to expect, and which my own en-
tire frankness in the Grand Jury room has certainly
entitled me to receive.

The natural, not to say the intended, effect of the
form under which the presentment was made, was to
produce upon the minds of such as were not knowing
to the very phraseology which I used, the impression
that I had been stating, as of my own personal knowl-
edge, matters which, upon a little sifting, disclosed
themselves to have reached me only through the
avenue of the press. I cannot feel that to be just.
Nor can I otherwise interpret it than as calculated to
represent as ministerial effusiveness and carelessness,
that which had not an element of extravagance in it,
and in that way covertly to impeach and bring into
discredit my arraignment in its other details. Leav-
ing that point, I would like merely to interpolate the
inquiry. Why was it that an accusation that for six
weeks had been lying unregarded and untouched in
the public prints was at once made a subject of judi-

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 6^

cial investigation and carried to the point of present-
ment when reproduced in the pulpit ?

But all that one side, and I am sorry to have asked
you to devote a single moment's thought to a matter
that has, to such a degree, the appearance of being
personal to myself. All that aside, you will remem-
ber that the substance of the charge that four weeks
ago was brought against a certain official, was that
he betrayed a languid interest in the conviction of
violators of law and allowed other considerations to
intervene between himself and his official obligations.
Now, that last is exactly what he has done in my own
person since then. I went to him with business that
pertained to his own department, and he p^emptorily
refused to hold official communication with me. His
feelings toward me personally prevented his fulfilling
the obligations due from him officially. Now, there is
no newspaper rumor about that. I speak that I do
know, and testify that which I have seen, and two wit-
nesses are ready to bear their testimony to the fact.
I am a citizen and a taxpayer, and I am refused audi-
ence with an officer whose salary I, as a taxpayer, am
helping to pay, and whose services as an attorney I am
entitled to avail of.

So far as that concerns me personally, of course I
care nothing about it. It would be as childish as it
would be wicked to bring into the pulpit personal dif-
ferences as such. But the point is that, in the trans-
action just referred to, I, as a citizen, could get

64 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

nothing from an officer of the Government, because,
forsooth, I was not " solid " with him.

Now that is the genius of the entire Tammany busi-
ness. You cannot get anything from Tammany unless
you are " solid " with Tammany. A man, though he
may be working night and day for the ennoblement
and purification of the city he loves, has no rights
which Tammany is bound to respect. We are obliged
and glad to make all possible exceptions, and there
are many such ; but the fact is that Tammany, taken
as a whole, is not so much a political party as it is a
commercial corporation, organized in the interest of
making the most possible out of its official opportu-
nities, so tl^at what the rest of us get from Tammany
we have to get by fighting for it or paying for it. All
of which is stated with enviable conciseness and frank-
ness in the last number of the North A Dierican Review,
in which the writer says :

" Tammany is no party and refuses allegiance to
any. It has no principles or platforms to pledge it to
duty. It fights only for itself. Its governmental
theory is simple. It counts absolutely on the igno-
rance, the venal and depraved voters, holding them
with the adhesive and relentless grasp of an octopus.
It never alienates the grogshop keepers, the gamblers,
the beer dealers, the nuisance makers, or the pro-
letariat. Patriotism and a sense of duty count for
nothing in its estimate of political forces. Party pas-
sion, selfishness, and hopes of victory and spoils are
its supreme reliance."

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 65

And not only does the organization just referred to
stand as the organization of crime, but it embodies the
tyranny of crime. There are citizens in this town
abominating the whole system that do not dare to
stand up and be counted. One of the most striking
features of the immense number of letters of thanks
and encouragement that I have been receiving during
the last four weeks is the large percentage written by
people who did not dare to append their own signa-
tures— distinctly in sympathy with everything that is
true and pure and honest, and yet afraid over their
own names to put into black and white their sincere
views of a government whose duty it is to foster virtue,
not drive it into hiding.

I do not refer to this for the purpose of charging
the writers with cowardice. I only adduce the fact as
demonstration of the inherent tyranny of the civilized
brigands who are despotizing over us. Only in that
connection I want to say that now is a good time to
speak out ; an excellent opportunity for moral hero-
ism to come to the front and assert itself. Nothing
frightens so easily as vice. " The wicked flee when
no man pursueth," and they make still better time
when somebody is pursuing. Time and time again
during the past weeks, as I have, between the hours
of 12 and 3 in the morning, sat in the company of
women of a class almost too disreputable to be even
named in this presence, I have heard the same thing
said, that there is not much doing just now for the
5

66 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

reason that everybody is scared. Some things have
come, and they have a shrewd presentiment that
more of the same sort is on the way. The scattering
feathers and the plaintive peepings indicate that the
shots are striking into the quick.

I cannot too strongly emphasize the fact, even at
the risk of being repetitious, that my interest in this
thing is due solely to the obstruction that such a con-
dition of affairs puts upon my work as a preacher of
righteousness. You cannot have men even of tainted
reputation, saying nothing of character, high in mu-
nicipal authority without that fact working the dis-
couragement of virtue and the reduction of moral
standards. It is a pretty trying state of affairs for
such as are attempting to improve the moral condition
of our young men, in particular, to have officials high
in power against whom the most damning and excori-
ating thing that can be done is to publish their history.
A while ago the treasurer of a certain bank downtown,
who was not even suspected of being dishonest, but
whose name, through no fault of his own, had become
associated with a disreputable firm, was thrown out of
his position. The reason stated by the directors was,
that while they cordially and unanimously recognized
the integrity of the treasurer, they could not afford to
jeopardize the interest of the bank by having asso-
ciated with them a man that was tainted even to the
slight degree of being mentioned in connection with
dishonest dealing.

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 6/

Now, that is the way you run a bank. That is the
style of condition that you impose upon candidates for
positions of financial trust. I am not here to criticise
these conditions. But when you come to run a city,
with a million and a half of people, with interests that
are a great deal more than pecuniary, and a city, too,
that is putting the stamp of its character or of its in-
famy upon every city the country through, then you
have not always shrunk from putting into positions of
trust men that are ex-dive-keepers and crooks and ex-
convicts, and men whose detailed written history would
draw tremblingly near to the verge of obscene liter-
ature.

The charge has been brought that the kind of dis-
course that was given here four weeks ago was entirely
general, and was not characterized by that definite-
ness, or by that sharpness of detail that would com-
mend it to the interest or the confidence of a judicial
mind. Now, details, I confess, were the last things
that I supposed that the virtuous people of this city
would need, or that the administration of this city
would want. It was with some surprise, therefore,
that I understood that it was officially stated in the
Stevenson " Slide " case that while ministers like my-
self were willing enough to sit in their own houses
and vituperate the city government, it was impossible
to get them to procure evidence that would help to
convict suspects of violation of laws. As I say, this
was something of a surprise, for while I knew that the

68 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

city government had allowed the ladies to teach them
how to sweep the streets, I did not imagine it would
be considered a part of my ministerial duty to go into
the slums and help catch the rascals, especially as the
police are paid nearly five million dollars a year for
doing it themselves. But it is never to late to broaden
your diocese. I, therefore, selected seven names of
parties that I imagined might occasionally forget them-
selves and be guilty of the violation of the Excise law,
put evidence-takers on their track, and having secured
evidence such as my counsel deemed sufficient, met
the District-Attorney in the interview above described.
Opportunity of official intercourse being denied me
(I omitted just now to mention the fact that the seven
names selected were of parties that are way up in
the confidences of Tammany councils), opportunity of
official intercourse being denied me, my lawyer put
the names of the parties before the District- Attorney,
which he politely returned, and said that we could
take them before the Grand Jury and that he would
secure us the opportunity. I was admitted to the
Grand Jury, but upon stating my errand was cour-
teously informed that attending to such matters was
not exactly in their line, and was invited to move on,
and first try my luck with the police court. Applica-
tion was therefore made to the police court, and war-
rants were obtained. That was the first gleam of
hope that broke upon us, and down to date it is the
last gleam. The case was put over to last week.

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 69

Monday. On Monday we all gathered again at the
Tombs, counsel and witnesses, only to have the Judge
tell us that we could come again this week, Tuesday.
I said four weeks ago that our municipal administra
tion showed a languid interest in the conviction of
criminals. I was taunted with dealing in generalities.
Now there is a specification, seven of them. Go put
them along with the Grand Jury's presentment.

Well, the work of gathering evidence, thus begun,
grew upon me in interest and fascination. Last Sun-
day, therefore, while we were quietly studying and
praying over the matter of Foreign Missions, I had a
force of five detectives out studying up city missions,
and trying to discover whether the Police Department
shows any practical respect to its obligation to enforce
the excise laws on the Sabbath.

Before going on with that I want to mention a
singular little episode that also occurred last Sabbath
on the east side. The story met my eye in the morn-
ing papers and I asked a legal friend to go to the
clerk of the court and verify it, which he did in its
essential features. A policeman on Division Street,
urged thereto, so the story runs, by the necessity that
he felt himself under just at this time of showing the
community what a lively interest the police take in
preserving the holy quiet of the Lord's Day, went into
an open grocer's shop and arrested the shopkeeper
for selling a three-cent cake of soap. Now I do not
want to be understood as condoning that offence.

70. OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

Cleanliness is next to godliness, but cleanliness isn't
godliness, and I am not here to criticise Judge Kil-
breth, in whose integrity I have thorough reason to
put confidence, for putting the offender under bail to
appear before the General Sessions. But while this
three-cent soap transaction was transpiring there were
a good many other things transipring, and I return to
the experience of my five detectives.

I have here the results of their day's work, neatly
typewritten, sworn to, corroborated, and subject to
the call of the District- Attorney. There is here the
list of parties that last Sunday violated the ordinance
of Sunday closing. One of these covers the east side
and the other the west side of town. These names are
interesting, some of them especially so, from one
cause or another — in some instances on account of
their official position, either present or recent; in other
cases because of their family connection or intimacies
with the powers that be. These lists include viola-
tions in twenty-two precincts. The statement sworn
to is the following, omitting the names and addresses
of the witnesses, which are in the documents, of course,
given in full: "John Smith, of such a street and num-
ber, in said city, being duly sworn, deposes and says,
that at the city of New York, on Sunday, March 6,
1892, between the hours of 8 a. m. and 12 p. m., de-
ponent, in company with one John Jones, visited the
following liquor saloons where wine or malt or spiritu-
ous liquors were exposed for sale ; that there were

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY /I

people drinking at the bars of all these places, to
wit.:"

Then follows the list of places, with addresses, and
the number of people present in each. Then comes
John Jones's sworn corroborations of John Smith's
affidavit. In other words " legal evidence," which is
what I understand our municipal administration desires
to have this pulpit furnish it. Of course, I am not
going to take up your time by reading the names.
Only a little in the way of recapitulation, for illustra-
tion's sake. Second Precinct, 7 saloons open, 55 people
present; Fourth Precinct, 10 saloons open, 45 people
present; Fourteenth Precinct, 15 saloons open, 169
people present; Nineteenth Precinct (that is ours), 18
saloons open, 205 people present. In all (I do not
mean all the saloons that were open, but all the open
ones that our detectives happened to strike), in all, 254
saloons, 2,438 people present. They don't want "gen-
eralities," they want particularities. Well, there are
254 of them, not pulpit grandiloquence, nor minis-
terial exuberance, but hard, cold affidavits. If the
concerned guardians of the public peace and the
anxious conservators of municipal laws want facts we
will guarantee to grind them out a fresh grist every
blessed week. Now, let them take vigorous hold of
the material furnished above, or quit their hypocritical
clamoring after specific charges.

It has seemed to me that there would be a peculiar
propriety in studying a little way into the general

72 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

trend of things in the Nineteenth Precinct, as that is
the one in which our own church is situated, and from
which we draw the major part of our congregation.
To this end I have had during the last few days a
number of interested people, some of them paid de-
tectives, some of them volunteers from this congrega-
tion, scouring the ground with a view to learning
something about the gambling-houses and the houses
of a disorderly character. A gambler who is a dealer
in one of the faro banks here told one of our party
that the small games were running pretty quiet now
because Dr. Parkhurst's society (the Society for the
Prevention of Crime) had so frightened the police
that they had made the gamblers close up for a time,
till this thing should blow over. I only mention that
that you may get at the true inwardness of the situa-
tion. The police can stop gambling just the instant
that they conclude that it is unsafe not to. They will
go just as far as the exigencies of the case push them,
and to all appearances not a step farther.

Among places of this character reported to me are
two that are possessed of a melancholy interest, be-
cause of the youthful character of the patrons — a
gambling house a little above 40th street, furnished
with roulette, hazard, and red and black tables, in
which there were counted forty-eight young men, and
a policy shop, three blocks above our church, running
full blast, and which forty young men were seen to
enter last Tuesday.

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 73

Leaving the gambling-house for the present, I must
report to you what was discovered in a region of
iniquity that in this presence will have to be dealt with
with as much caution and delicacy as the nature of
the subject will allow. I have here a list of thirty
houses, names and addresses, all specified, that are
simply houses of prostitution, all of them in this pre-
cinct. These thirty places were all of thern visited by
my friend, or my detective, on the loth and also on
the nth of March, and solicitations received on both
dates. I spent an hour in one of these places myself,
and I know perfectly well what it all means, and with
what entire facility such houses can be gotten into.
That house is three blocks only from the spot where I
am standing now. All of this has been neatly type-
written, sworn to, corroborated, and is subject to the
call of the District-Attorney.

And now, fathers and mothers, I am trying to help
your sons. From the very commencement of my min-
istry here I confess that to be of some encouragement
and assistance to young men has been my great ambi-
tion. Appeal after appeal has come to me these last
four weeks, signed " A Father " or " A Mother," beg-
ging me to try to do something for their dear boys. But,
as things are, I do declare there is not very much that
I can do for them. I never knew till within three
weeks how almost impossible it is for a young man to
be in the midst of the swim of New York City life,
under present conditions, and still be temperate and

74 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

clean. I had supposed that the coarse, bestial vices
were fenced off from youthful contact with some show
at least of police restriction. So far as I have been
able to read the symptoms of the case, I don't dis-
cover the restrictions. There is little advantage in
preaching the Gospel to a young fellow on Sunday if
he is going to be sitting on the edge of a Tammany-
maintained hell the rest of the week.

Don't tell me I don't know what I am talking
about. Many a long, dismal, heart-sickening night, in
company with two trusty friends, have I spent since I
spoke on this matter before, going down into the dis-
gusting depths of this Tammany-debauched town ;
and it is rotten with a rottenness that is unspeakable
and indescribable, and a rottenness that would be ab-
solutely impossible except by the connivance, not to
say the purchased sympathy, of the men whose one
obligation before God, men, and their own conscience
is to shield virtue and make vice difficult. Now that
I stand by, because before Almighty God, I know it,
and I will stand by it though buried beneath present-
ments as thick as autumn leaves in Vallombrosa, or
snowfiakes in a March blizzard.

Excuse the personal reference to myself in all this,
but I cannot help it. I never dreamed that any force
of circumstances would ever draw me into contacts so
coarse, so beastly, so consummately filthy as those I
have repeatedly found myself in the midst of these
last days. I feel as though I wanted to go out of

OUR FIGHT WITFI TAMMANY 75

town for a month to bleach the memory of it out of
my mind, and the vision of it out of my eyes.

I am not ignorant of the colossal spasms of indig-
nation into which the trustees of Tammany ethics
have been thrown by the blunt and inelegant charac-
terization of a month ago, and I have a clear, as well
as a serene, anticipation of what I have to expect
from the same sources for having deliberately sought
out and entered into the very presence of iniquity in
its vilest shape, for there is nothing in the first chapter
of Romans, read this morning, that will outdo in
filthiness the scenes which my eyes have just wit-
nessed, and not till I look on the great White Throne
can the foul traces of it be effaced ; but horrible
though the memory of it must always be to me, it has
earned me a grip on the situation that I would not
surrender for untold money. But the grim and deso-
late part of it all is that these things are all open and
perfectly easily accessible. The young men, your
boys, probably know that they are. Ten minutes of
sly indoctrination, such as a tainted comrade might
give them, would afford them all the information
they would need to enable them with entire con-
fidence to pick out either a cheap or an expensive
temple of vile fascination, where the unholy worship
of Venus is rendered. The door will open to him,
and the blue-coated guardian of civic virtue will not
molest him. I spent an hour in such a place yester-
day morning, and when we came down the steps I al-

^6 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

most tumbled over a policeman who appeared to be
doing picket duty on the curbstone.

To say that the police do not know what is going
on and where it is going on, with all the brilliant
symptoms of the character of the place distinctly in
view, is rot. I do not ask anyone to excuse or to
apologize for my language. You have got to fit your
words to your theme. We do not handle charcoal
with a silver ladle nor carry city garbage out to the
dumping ground in a steam-yacht. Anyone who, with
all the easily ascertainable facts in view, denies that
drunkenness, gambling, and licentiousness in this
town are municipally protected, is either a knave or
an idiot. It is one of the rules and regulations of the
Police Department : " It is the duty of the Superin-
tendent to enforce in the city of New York all the
laws of the State and ordinances of the city of New
York and ordinances of the Board of Health, and the
rules and regulations of the Board of Police ; to abate
all gaming houses, rooms, and premises and places
kept or used for lewd or obscene purposes, and places
kept or used for the sale of lottery tickets or policies."

Another rule is : " Captains will be diligent in en-
forcing the laws relating to lotteries, lottery policies
and shops ; the selling of liquor and gambling of all
kinds." Still another rule governing patrolmen is the
following : " Patrolmen must carefully watch all dis-
orderly houses or houses of bad fame within their
post ; observe by whom they are frequented and re-

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 'J']

port their observations to tlie commanding officer."
Still another : "Patrolmen shall report to their com-
manding officers all persons known or suspected of
being policy dealers, gamblers, receivers of stolen
property, thieves, burglars, or offenders of any kind."
Again : " Each patrolman must by his vigilance render
it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for any one to
commit crime on his post." The obligations of our
Police Department to enforce law are distinct, and
their failure to do it is just as distinct.

I am not making the definite charge that this pro-
ceeds from complicity with violators of the laws, but I
do make the distinct charge that it proceeds either
from complicity or incompetency. They can take
their choice. I do not believe, though, that any con-
siderable number of people in New York consider
them incompetent. This is disproved by the consum-
mate ability with which certain portions of their
official obligations are discharged, and by the com-
plete success with which, when on one or two oc-
casions they made up their minds, for instance, that
the liquor saloons should be closed, they were closed
up tight and dry, from Harlem to the Battery. Their
ability I am willing to applaud indefinitely, knowing
all the time, though, that the more I applaud them for
their ability the more I damn them for their delin-
quency.

With the backing, then, of such facts legally cer-
tified to as have been presented this morning, we in-

78 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

sist, in behalf of an insulted and outraged public, that
the Police Department, from its top down, shall, with-
out further shift or evasion, proceed with an iron hand
to close up gambling-houses, houses of prostitution,
and whiskey-shops open in illegal hours. If this is
what they cannot do, let them concede the point, and
give place to someone who can. If this is what they
will not do, let them stand squarely on the issue and
be impeached according to the provisions of the Code.
In a closing word, voicing the righteous indigna-
tion of the pure and honest citizenship of this tyran-
nized municipality, let me in a representative way say
to Tammany: " For four weeks you have been wincing
under the sting of a general indictment, and have been
calling for particulars. This morning I have given
you particulars, two hundred and eighty-four of them.
Now, what are you going to do with them ?"

We do not want to claim for the pulpit any position
of advantage which does not belong to it, nor to speak
in any manner arrogantly of its peculiar facilities of
influence ; but we are probably correct in saying that
the sermon above reproduced disturbed the enemy be-
cause it came, not from the newspaper, but from the
pulpit. This is illustrated by the fact that the same
criticism which I made against the District-Attorney
had been previously made quite as well and fully as
sharply by the press and had not been resented.

CHAPTER VII

PRESENTMENT BY THE GRAND JURY AGAINST THE PO-
LICE DEPARTMENT

Tammany Hall blackguarded me for preaching my
sermon of February 14th because I indulged in gen-
eralities and spoke from hearsay ; but that was not
a circumstance to the way in which they black-
guarded me for my sermon of March 13th, because I
gave them particulars and spoke from personal knowl-
edge. There is great difficulty in proceeding against
criminals in a way that will exactly conform to their
convenience or fall in with their aesthetic predilec-
tions. I cannot seem to hit upon any method of deal-
ing with them that secures their cordial endorsement.
The District-Attorney, who had made himself some-
what conspicuous by his disapprobation of my Febru-
ary policy, was equally hesitant about applauding my
reverse policy of the month following. Being of a
legal mind, it seemed as though he would be gratified
by the particularity of my legally sustained charges ;
but at any rate he never gave me any indications of
his gratification. Police Commissioner Martin was re-
ported in a published interview as lamenting the effect

80 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

that must have been produced upon the pure-hearted
attendants at my church on the morning of March
13th. It is a touching token of that Commissioner's
intrinsic deUcacy of spirit that, having been so long a
constituent element of a Police Department like ours,
he should still have retained his innate sensitiveness
and have experienced pain at the thought of the hypo-
thetical " blush " of the members of my congregation.

These references have been made only as samples
of the taciturn contempt with which Tammany received
my bill of particulars, showing that the passion ex-
hibited by them the month previous was due not to
the fact that my charges were general and unsustained,
but to the fact that anybody had dared to make any
charges against them of any kind, sustained or unsus-
tained, general or specific. In other words, all the
threats, official and unofficial, that were flung at me on
the occasion of my first sermon were simply parts of
one stupendous game of bluff played in order to deter
me and everyone else from doing anything more of
the same sort.

Fortunately for the cause, however, the Grand Jury
then sitting was of quite a distinct species from the
Hermann and O'Halloran Jury of the month previous,
and declined to be the tool of any District-Attorney or
of any political interest. Our community, which is
now rejoicing in the overthrow of Tammany Hall, has
very little idea of the degree to which it is indebted
for that overthrow, to the careful, faithful and heroic

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 8 1

work done by the March Grand Jury of 1892. Its
foreman was Henry M. Tabor ; the other members
were as follows :

David L. Einstein, R. L. Sherman,

James WiUiams, Robert Rutter,

Nathan Farnbacher, G. Foster,

George Harral, E. G. Bogert,

Wm. Lauterbach, C. E. Merrill,

T. J. Davis, Wm. Moir,

R. McCarrerty, Geo. Holbrook,

J. B. Bloomingdale, F. Mead, Jr.,

A. G. Hyde, Wm. H. Marston,

G. E. Taintor, J. L. Hyde,

Andrew J. Fay, J. W. Tappin.

Foreman Tabor handled matters in a way to suit
himself. That is to say, his experience as a juror had
made him familiar with the fact that a Grand Jury
does not fulfil its functions by playing tail to the Dis-
trict-Attorney's kite. It is an independent and irre-
sponsible body, a Grand Jury is, and, properly speaking,
no more the subject of the District-Attorney than it is
of the court-house janitor — a fact, however, of which
the District-Attorney appears often to take good care
to have the minds of the jurors unsuspicious. It was
some months before I learned that there was any way
of getting before the Jury save by a preliminary
wrestling match in the District-Attorney's office.

Mr. Tabor, then, let it be repeated, understood his
6

82 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

rights and duties too well to allow of any pranks be-
ing played upon him by the gentleman below stairs.
His Jury, which was in session during the weeks fol-
lowing the delivery of my discourse of March 13th,
promptly passed the following resolution :

^'■Resolved, That the District-Attorney be, and is
hereby requested to produce all evidence before this
Grand Jury regarding the cases referred to by Dr.
Parkhurst and his associates and Society's agents,
and request Dr. Parkhurst and his agents to appear
before this Jury at the earliest practicable moment."

This request was immediately transmitted and
promptly responded to by myself and agents of the
Society, and indictments found against several of the
parties in whose houses we had been during our tour
of nocturnal visitation.

It will be well to state parenthetically that when
the matter of finding such indictments was suggested
by some members of the Jury, I stated that whether
it was desirable for them to do so was a question for
them to decide, but that that was a matter in which I
personally, and as a representative of the Society for
the Prevention of Crime had no interest ; that we
were not engaged in a crusade against disorderly
houses but against the police considered as their pre-
sumed protectors ; but that the thing which would
gratify us most, and meet what we considered the
ends of justice, would be for them to push their

OUR FIGHT Wrill TAMMANY 83

inquiries to a point where they could see their way
clear to formulate charges against the Police De-
partment in its entirety. This was not said with
any intention of dictating to the Jury its line of duty.
We, however, wanted it understood that the object we,
as a Society, had in view, was something far deeper
than the suppression of any local outbreaks of crime,
or of any individual violation of law. Whether this
statement of our desire and purpose had any influence
on the jurors is of no particular importance, but it is
of importance to notice that the work which they did
was thoroughly consistent with our own plan of cam-
paign, and that the remainder of its time it occupied
for the most part, not in indicting individual violators
of gambling and excise laws, etc., but in prosecuting
its inquiries into the matter of police negligence and
criminality.

A considerable number of the higher officials of the
Police Department were summoned before Mr. Tabor's
Jury. As has since been so amply demonstrated,
Police Commissioners, Superintendent, Inspectors,
and Captains are a coy and innocent lot. They are
so careful not to perjure themselves that they acquire
a morbid distrust of their own memories, and for fear
that they should say more than they can quite con-
scientiously take their oath upon, narrow their testi-
mony down to a scope so narrow as to be practically
valueless so far as relates to the securing of any ma-
terial, or at least specific results. Another, although

84 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

perhaps a less complimentary way of putting the same
matter, would be to say, that the adroit officials de-
clined to be snared in any of the nooses that Foreman
Tabor threw to them, and returned to headquarters
the same array of gold-banded innocence and brass-
buttoned ingenuousness that they continued to be
down to the later date of Mr. Goff's experiments upon
them.

But although the Jury was unable, in the short time
at its command, and in view of the unresponsive char-
acter of the witnesses upon which it was obliged to
rely, to gather facts sufficient to warrant an indictment
against any particular officer or officers, yet they dis-
covered enough to justify their formulating charges
against the Police Department as such, which were
couched in the form of the following presentment :

To the Honorable the Court of General Sessions and the
Honorable the Recorder, Frederick Smyth :

Owing to public and general charges having been
made against the efficiency of the Police Department
in suppressing vice and arresting law-breakers, this
Grand Jury has spent considerable time in investigat-
ing these accusations.

It is conceded by all, that the Police Department is
splendidly organized, and is not excelled in its ability
to cope with crime. The comparative safety of travel
and freedom from disorder on the streets are evidence
of the ability of the force.

It must, however, be as fully conceded that certain

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 85

crimes, such as the maintaining of gambling-houses
and disorderly houses, and the violation of excise law,
are very prevalent, and that they are not seriously in-
terfered with by the police.

The usual excuse is the difficulty of entrance into
such places (although easily accessible to the public),
and of procuring legal evidence. An investigation of
the facts shows that few raids upon gambling and dis-
orderly houses are made by the police of their own
volition, and rarely, if ever, by the captain personally ;
and in nearly all cases action is taken by private citi-
zens or agents of societies upon which warrants are
issued and raids made.

The police rules provide for regular reports by cap-
tains of police to headquarters of all gambling and
disorderly houses in their precincts. Such reports are
regularly made, and there is in Police Headquarters a
long list of houses of that character, giving their exact
location and the kind of business conducted in each of
them.

Section 282 of the Consolidation Act requires the
police to carefully observe and inspect all such prem-
ises, and to repress and to restrain all unlawful con-
duct in them, and gives them power to make arrests
in such cases with or without warrants.

Section 285 of the Consolidation Act gives each
policeman the power to report to the Superintendent
any such premises, and to state the reasonable grounds
for believing that the law is violated upon them, where-
upon the Superintendent may issue his own warrant
without any necessity of applying to a police justice,
upon which warrant his officers may break into the
suspected premises and arrest any persons found vio-

86 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

lating the law and capture any apparatus used in such
unlawful business.

A large amount of testimony has been presented
showing the existence and violation of law in large
numbers of these places. The Grand Jury has in-
dicted the proprietors of some of these places, and
they have been arrested under such indictments and
have pleaded. In these very cases further testimony
has been presented showing that there was no abate-
ment in these premises of the same disorderly practices,
and that there was no appearance of police interference.

With the facts before us that these places do exist
in large numbers, that they are well known to the
police, that their locations and special lines of busi-
ness are recorded by the Department, and that very
particular and express duties are imposed by law
upon the police to inspect and repress these places
(Section 282), and that extraordinary powers of break-
ing into houses without previous application for judi-
cial warrants are allowed to the police in order that
they may perform such duties (Section 285), and with
the fact that has plainly appeared to us that the police
seldom use these powers, or even apply to magistrates
for warrants to carry out their legal duties, there are
presented to us the best reasons for condemning the
inaction of the Police Department in these matters.
They are either incompetent to do what is frequently
done by private individuals with imperfect facilities for
such work, or else there exist reasons and motives for
such inaction which are illegal and corrupt. The gen-
eral efficiency of the Department is so great that it is
our belief that the latter suggestion is the explanation
of the peculiar inactivity.

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 87

In reference to excise violations the proofs which
have been produced, and our own observation clearly
show that the existence of open saloons and the sale
of liquor in them at unlawful hours is the general rule,
and it is clear that there is very little attempt by the
police to interfere with these practices.

The present situation certainly warrants the con-
demnation of the Police Department in the matters
above mentioned. The force is paid liberally for the
work of enforcing the law. They do enforce the law
in many respects in a superior manner, but if they be
permitted to discriminate in favor of certain forms of
crime for reasons well known to themselves, there is
no telling where the same course will lead them to, or
leave the interests of our city. Circumstances and
testimony offered have tended to show financial con-
siderations in some cases for lax administration.

Indeed, the publicity with which the law is violated
and the immunity from arrest enjoyed by the law-
breaker is inconsistent with any other theory. It is
obvious that when a confession by a lawbreaker of
payment for protection would subject him to penalties
not only for his acknowledged crime but also for
bribegiving, it is extremely difficult to collect trust-
worthy evidence in direct proof of such charges. It
has been thought best at the present time to go no
further than to make this general presentment, so
that the courts and the residents of our city may be
properly informed and warned against the dangerous
evil that is in the midst of us.

The foregoing was unanimously adopted.

Henry M. Tabor, Foreman.

Grand Jury Room, March 31, 1892,

CHAPTER VIII

BYRNES AND THE " GREAT SHAKE-UP "

No one who is at all familiar with what preceded
the action of the March Grand Jury, and what has
transpired since that time, will be surprised at the
space which we have devoted in Chapter VII. to
the sessions of that Jury and to the presentment in
which its painstaking investigations culminated. That
presentment furnished us the groundwork on the
basis of which all our subsequent efforts have been
prosecuted to establish the legal credibility of our
charges against the Police Department. The Jury
published it as its sworn opinion that the police
force of New York was either incompetent or crim-
inal, and that it was not incompetent. So that from
that time on, whenever we found it convenient or
necessary to call our Police Department vicious, or to
apply to it any other epithet that occasion seemed to
require, we felt the combined judicial authority of the
March Grand Jury as our voucher and guaranty ; it
lifted the activity of the Society for the Prevention of
Crime out of the region of crankism, and wrought
within that Society a grounded assurance and secured

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 89

to it a dignity and a status. A great deal of the
recent victory on the 6th of November was simply
the action of the March Jury of 1892 come to its
fruitage.

The decided terms in which the presentment was
couched were received by the friends and officials of
the Police Department with inexpressible scorn. The
generality of the charges relieved specific pressure
on individual members of the Department, but made
it only by so much the more difficult either to reply
to or to escape the suspicion beneath which all its
members were henceforth obliged to labor. They
were instantly converted into a body of suspects, and
no language which they might employ, either of the
ordinary or of the profane sort, operated to their re-
lief or deliverance.

If the police officials had been as honest in their in-
tention as they were jealous of their reputation, they
would have taken prompt measures to follow up the
presentment, and either have attempted to refute the
imputation or purify the Department. But the second
they did not want to do, and the first they knew they
could not do. It is amusing at this later date, when
so many of the foul secrets of the Police Commission-
ers and their subordinates have been brought to light
by the Lexow Investigation, to recall the passionate
declarations of innocence with which the hard, dry
imputations of the March Grand Jury were greeted.
Of course the Commissioners, the Superintendent, the

90 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

Inspectors, and the Captains knew then just as well
as we know now, how inadequately even the stern lan-
guage of Mr. Tabor's jurors was to state the whole
foul truth of the case ; and yet those same officials,
some of whom are directing the affairs of the Depart-
ment to-day, and even planning to have a hand in
its reorganization, rose up in indignant protestation
against the cruel injustice that had been done the
"Finest Police Force in the World."

The Tribune of April 2d quoted Commissioner Mc-
Clave as saying : " If my information is correct, the
police power in this city is the best in the world." It
will be remembered that this same Mr. McClave re-
signed his position on the Board shortly after Mr.
Goff's interview with him before the Lexow Com-
mittee.

President Martin is quoted by the World of April
3d, as saying : " The accusation that the police are in
the pay of disorderly and gambling-houses is both in-
consistent and absurd."

Inspector Williams is quoted by the same authority
as saying : " I have been a police officer for twenty-six
years, and the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst and the members of
his church have contributed more to houses of prosti-
tution than I have, and have derived more benefits
from them." Newspaper files of that date will fur-
nish the interested inquirer with considerable material
of the same quality.

The decided and confident terms in which the

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 9I

presentment was couclied produced throughout the
city a strong reaction in behalf of our cause. Popular
sentiment is a peculiar commodity, and rises and falls
with an energy that it cannot always itself account
for. There is a certain contagion in human opinion,
and at the impulse of Foreman Tabor's manifesto, the
human mind, as reflected by individual utterances and
by the attitude of the press, arrayed itself unequivo-
cally on the side of the new movement against the
Police Department. We could distinctly see that a
reactionary tendency would before long assert itself,
and were not, therefore, surprised when it appeared.
But, for the time being, the cause represented by the
Society for the Prevention of Crime was in the as-
cendant, and the Police Department driven to the
wall and obliged to make some show of virtue, how-
ever destitute it might be of virtue's reality. This
astute commingling of the comic and tragic was con-
summated in what has since come to be known as the
" Great Police Shake-up," and occurred on the 19th of
April, 1892. Before entering into the particulars of
the " Shake-up " it is necessary to notice that one
week previous, that is, on April 12th, William Murray
had resigned from the Superintendency of the Police,
and had been succeeded by Chief-Inspector Thomas
Byrnes.

Thomas Byrnes had won international reputation as
a detective, and it was somehow hoped that what had
evinced itself as ingenuity in his former capacity

92 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

would reproduce itself in the shape of executive tal-
ent in the new and more authoritative position to
which he was now promoted. No man ever had a
greater opportunity to make himself felt, if only he
had the requisite integrity of purpose and the requis-
ite strength of purpose. The popular mind was
aroused to the necessity of more thorough adminis-
tration of the Department, and the moral sense of the
town was prepared to extend to him a warm welcome
and to afford him firm backing ; and among all these
there were none more ready to recognize any honest
effort on Mr. Byrnes's part than the Society for the
Prevention of Crime and its executive committee ; and
the daily journals of that date bear abundant testimony
to the fact.

The prompt aggressive action of the Superintendent
went far to strengthen the confidence that we were
willing and anxious to repose in him. He not only
stated that his " one supreme object would be the en-
forcement of the laws without fear or favor," but im-
mediately bestirred himself in a way that strengthened
the hopes of his friends, and excited the apprehension
of evil-doers. The second day after his appointment
the police captains were all of them summoned to his
office. The Recorder of April 19th, reports him as de-
claring that he was " fully determined to enforce the
laws. He had nothing to do with the making of the
laws," he said, " but so long as they exist he would
see that they were obeyed. The saloons would be

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 93

closed down every Sunday while these laws were in
force."

The degree to which the general expectation was
aroused is indicated by the following extract from the
Herald oi April i6th :

The days of what few gambling-houses and disrep-
utable resorts that are still open in the city are num-
bered. By the latter part of next week these will go
the way of those already closed. Every police captain
in the city has received instructions to arrest the pro-
prietors of all such places, and to see that each and
every house is immediately shut and barred. They
have also received instructions to allow no violations
of the Excise law, and every saloon-keeper who has
heretofore obliged his thirsty patrons on Sunday morn-
ing will be arrested the moment his doors are opened.

His first Sunday in office only about half the usual
number of saloons were reported to be open. No one
could be at all knowing to the strength with which
crime was intrenched among the criminal classes, and
lawlessness become a chronic condition among the
police, without anticipating that Mr. Byrnes could not
carry out his professed intention without a struggle ;
but we were all of us inclined for a few days to believe
that he would make a brave fight of it, and we would
have jumped in with him for all that we were v,'orth.

This brings us again to the point which we have
already touched on a previous page, namely, that of
the " Shake-up." This took place just one week after

94 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

Mr. Byrnes became Superintendent ; thirty-five cap-
tains were shifted. So complete an upheaval had
never been known. This event, taken in connection
with the " dry " Sunday, and the great show of pur-
pose evinced during the previous week, made of the
19th of April a red-letter day.

It was not until there had been a little time for
thought that even the most wary among us ventured
to interpret the last move as being anything other
than an honest attempt to strengthen the Department
and purify its service. The Superintendent might
transfer his captains every day now and nobody would
be hoodwinked by it ; but it was a new thing then,
and we were not so accustomed to being fooled Avith.
That was before the Department had done as much
posing as it has since, and before it took as much police
wool as it does now to overspread the public eye. One
of the singular features in the history of the last three
years, as far down as the 6th of November last, when
Mr. Byrnes displayed spasmodic virtue and made
special arrangements for securing an honest ballot,
has been the readiness with which the public has con-
sented to have its impaired confidence in police of-
ficials restored. Even the Executive Committee of
the Society for the Prevention of Crime have once
or twice come very near to being swamped in the
general condition of bamboozlement. The admin-
istrative and executive heads of the Department,
to say nothing of their subordinates, must have dc-

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 95

rived a great deal of sly entertainment from the
credulity with which the Superintendent's bit of in-
nutritious bait was, on the 19th of April, seized by
the people and by the newspapers. Even at that time,
however, the question was sometimes covertly raised,
" If Captain Jones, for instance, performs the duties of
his office in an incompetent or criminal way in the
Eighth Precinct, how is his service to be permanently
improved by being shifted to the Ninth Precinct?
If he is an able and faithful officer he can do his best
work where he is best acquainted, and if he is an
incompetent and corrupt officer, he cannot do good
service anywhere." This view of the matter was
sometimes taken, but there was something in the
revolution wrought by Byrnes that looked like a con-
cession to popular demand, and it was let go at that
without being considered either very concernedly or
very seriously. Mr. Byrnes had said that it was for
the good of the Department, and Mr. Byrnes had
organized the finest detective bureau in the known
world ; therefore the public were easily contented to
take his word for it.

At that time the blackmailing machinery of the
Department was not as well understood by any of us
as it is now, and there was one feature of the " Shake-
Up" that could not, therefore, at that time, be appre-
ciated, which is this, that when a new captain came
into a "rich " precinct (rich in the sense of containing
a goodly number of disorderly and gambling houses).

96 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

a fresh levy is made on its gambling industries, pre-
sumably with the intent of indemnifying himself for the
sum he has had to pay in order to secure the captaincy
of such precinct ; so that while a great shake-up looks
like a strenuous effort on the part of the force to
better its service, one of its most substantial effects is
to stimulate certain of the shifting captains' revenue.
The method by which this works was interestingly
shown by Mrs. Schubert, in her testimony given before
the Lexow Committee. Mrs. Schubert had been the
keeper of a disorderly house on Chrystie Street, and
we extract from her testimony as follows :

Q. How much money did you give up to Captain
Cross ?

A. Five hundred dollars.

Q. Where did you pay that money ?

A, In my house.

Q. Did he go into the house for it ?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. What did he say ?

A. Just introduced himself, that he was the new
captain and that he wanted five hundred dollars and
fifty dollars every month.

Q. Was there anything said when you gave him the
five hundred dollars about your being able to do busi-
ness ?

A. Well, yes ; he said I would be protected, to run
along quiet and not make any disturbance, fighting, or
any noise ; just to run my business quietly.

OUR FIGHT wrni tammaxv 97

Q. When Captain Cross went away Captain Devery
came there did he not?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you have a visit from Captain Devery ?

A. The same kind of a visit. He came to the
house and introduced himself as anew captain.

Q. What did he say about money ?

A. Well, five hundred dollars.

Q. You were doing business before Captain Cross
came into the precinct, weren't you ?

A. McLaughlin was there.

Q. Did you have an interview with Captain Mc-
Laughlin ?

A. The same thing.

Q. Did Captain McLaughlin demand money from
you?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. What did he say ?

A. Five hundred dollars.

Those who are not familiar with the sort of testi-
mony that was brought out by the Lexow Committee
will be able to gain some notion of it from the above
quotations. Our principal object in citing them, how-
ever, was to show the financial side of a "shake-up."
A "shake-up" means, at least in the three cases just
specified (and these are probably only a fair sample of
most of the rest), that when Captain Jones is trans-
ferred to Captain Smith's precinct, and vice versa,
Jones and Smith both are able to pocket five hundred
7

98 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

dollars initiation fee from each of the disreputable
houses in their new precincts respectively. " Shake-
ups " look like police activity, but the most that they
mean is a new twist on the extortion screw. It is a
favorite expression used by Mr. Byrnes in connection
with the transfer of captains, that it was done " for the
good of the service." The above statement of Mrs.
Schubert (which has been manifoldly corroborated) will
give to the unsophisticated reader a new conception
of what Mr. Byrnes means by '■'■ the good of the service."

Such, then, is the estimate we have to form of the
great police " Shake-up " of April 19th, when interpreted
in the light of disclosures that have been since made.
A repetition of that move would now be instantly re-
sented as a shilly-shallying affectation on Mr. Byrnes's
part, and an insult to the integrity and good sense of
the town. As was distinctly disclosed by the testi-
mony given by Commissioner Sheehan before the
Lexow Committee, this shifting of the captains was
carried out in accordance with a memorandum fur-
nished by the Superintendent, which shows two things :
First, the amount of subterfuge of which the Superin-
tendent will avail when he is laboring for popular
effect ; second, the amount of power which he has
been able to exercise notwithstanding his chronic
pretence that he was practically restrained from all
executive action by the embarrassing limitations put
upon him by the Police Commissioners.

It would be a libel upon the Superintendent's insight

OUR FIGHT WITH TAM.MAXY 99

as police officer, to imagine that he thought that any
permanent advantage would accrue to the city from a
recast of the fields in which respectively a lot of
criminals and incompetents should perform their of-
fice ; and it would be just as much of a libel upon Mr.
IJyrnes's sagacity, to suppose that he had not a clear
comprehension of the criminal system of barter that
obtained in the Department in the purchase of oppor-
tunities and the sale of immunities.

Mr. Byrnes has recently been reported in the Tribune
of November, 1894, as saying that, in view of the dis-
closures made by the Lexow Committee, he thought
the police force ought to be thoroughly reorganized.
In other words, having been a member of the police
force here for thirty-one years — patrolman, rounds-
man, sergeant, captain, inspector, superintendent — it
took a committee, largely made up of gentlemen from
outside of the city, to show this old police veteran the
foul rottenness in the midst of which he had been for
almost a third of a century wading and plying the
officer ; and yet there are men in this city to-day urg-
ing that Mr. Byrnes shall help reorganize our police
force.

We have been thus explicit in this part of our re-
cital in order that it may be understood what some of
the difficulties are against which the thorough and
earnest sentiment of community has to contend in its
efforts radically to improve our municipal condition.
This was only one of a long series of instances in

100 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

which the high police officials kept a careful finger on
the general pulse, and made a showy demonstration of
virtue when popular blood was approaching fever
mark. The issue demonstrated, however, that there
was no change in the spirit and purpose of the Depart-
ment. Viewed with reference to the possibilities of
blackmailing, there is pretty good soil over almost
the whole of Manhattan Island, and a police captain
who has been for any length of time on the force pos-
sesses a quick facility for sinking his roots anywhere ;
and the process of being "shifted" works no substan-
tial diminution of his revenue if, as he is likely to
succeed in doing, he arranges to have his old trusted
wardman graze for him in his new pasture.

CHAPTER IX

ON THE RACK

The colossal piece of police posing which we have
described under the title of " The Great Police Shake-
up," produced its calculated effect, and the sentiment
of community began immediately to rally to the sup-
port of the Department. The tide of popular indorse-
ment that had been setting quite strongly in our favor
since the presentment of March showed clear tokens
of ebbing, and we could easily see that other influ-
ences, soon to be set in operation, would be almost
certain to work in the same direction.

A number of indictments had been found by the
March Grand Jury on the basis of evidence secured
by Erving, Gardner, and myself, in the course of our
tour of investigation. These cases must be tried and
we must appear as witnesses. We have had a good
many cases pigeon-holed, first and last, but we knew
very well that these would not be.

So long as the results of our investigation of disor-
derly houses was stated only in the general terms em-
ployed in the discourse of March 13th, there was little
likelihood that the public would take offence ; but a

102 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

jury trial does not stop with general statements, and
the effect which Mr. Erving and myself easily antici-
pated as the issue, from the detailed canvass of the
charges in question, would be to weaken the support
of uncertain friends, and to arouse our enemies to a
frenzy of affected loathing and hypocritical indigna-
tion. In neither of these respects were we disap-
pointed. It was part of the plan of the campaign,
however, and had to be gone through with. Those
trials before the Court of General Sessions occurring
early in May, marked a crisis in the history of the Re-
form Movement. We knew that if they were not con-
ducted in such a way as to crush us, nothing could.
No pains were spared to make us appear infamous.
Practically it was not the keepers of disorderly resorts
that were on trial, but Erving and myself. There is
one public journal of whose conduct during those pro-
ceedings I cannot even to-day think without execra-
tions that defy utterance. The loathsome malignity
of the man whose genius inspired that sheet was just
too human to be that of a beast, and a good deal too
beastly to be that of a man. Time and event work
their own revenges, however, and the rotten institu-
tion of which he was a part, and to which he minis-
tered as a journalistic guardian angel, lies buried to-
day beneath the ballots of a regenerated city.

I cannot fail, in this connection, to speak of the
courteous, and even kindly treatment, which, during
this ordeal, I experienced at the hands of Judge Fitz-

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 103

gerald ; his single aim seemed to be to restrain the
proceedings within the limits proper to a judicial in-
vestigation, and to correct the impression, assiduously
cultivated, that it was the witness, not the defendant,
that was on trial. To quote from the IVorld of
May 7th : "When the case (of Mrs. Adams) was be-
gun, Lawyer Howe told the jury that he intended to
show that Dr. Parkhurst was a criminal. As he ut-
tered these words. Assistant District-Attorney Mcln-
tyre demanded that the Court protest against such
language. Judge Fitzgerald asked that Mr. Howe
confine himself to the limits of the case. ' The proper
office of an opening address to the jury,' said the
Judge, ' is to state the evidence that will be presented.
The defendant is on trial, not Dr. Parkhurst.' "

Considering the character that has of late dis-
tinguished the District-Attorney's office of this city,
and its confessed alliance with the system of malad-
ministration against which we were battling, it might
have been anticipated that the prosecuting officer in
these cases would have discharged his office either
traitorously or at least half-heartedly. On the con-
trary, too much cannot be said of the earnest faithful-
ness with which District-Attorney Mclntyre threw
himself into the work. As he remarked to me in a
conference held somewhat later, when referring to
these matters : " I made up my mind that the de-
fendants were guilty and resolved to do my best to
convict them."

104 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

It only remains to add that convictions followed in
every case. Foreign as it has been to the purpose of
the Society for the Prevention of Crime, during these
three years past, to secure the punishment of in-
dividual criminals, yet the issue of the warrants just
mentioned marked a certain amount of definite prog-
ress ; it was a kind of judicial certificate to the fact
that however mistaken we might be in our " methods,"
and however cranky we might be in our theories, when
we said a thing was so, there was some likelihood at
least that our statement was one that it was safe to
tie to.

Notwithstanding the distinct language of criticism
which we have just applied to one of our city dailies,
we should be at fault if we did not, at the same time,
recognize the valuable service it rendered to the cause,
all undesignedly and unwittingly. Its viciousness was
so vicious, and its malignity so malignant as to undo
a good deal of its own work, defeat its own base ends,
and initiate a reaction in our behalf. The American
mind believes in fair play ; and when the sheet re-
ferred to — the unconfessed organ of the unmention-
able vices that were flourishing under Tammany pat-
ronage— had for some months dealt with Erving
and myself and the Society for the Prevention of
Crime as though we, and not the gamblers and the
prostitutes and their police protectors, were the parties
on trial, it began more and more to occur to our
fellow - citizens that, while we might have been ex-

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 105

ceedingly injudicious in our methods, it was some
one besides ourselves that had been breaking the
laws, and that to hold us upon the editorial grid-
iron day after day, when the worst thing, perhaps, that
could be said of us was that we had undertaken in a
very questionable and injudicious way to ventilate the
official depravity for which the aforesaid journal stood
as sponsor, was not quite an ingenuous way of meet-
ing the situation. This idea gained currency, and it
is to the conscienceless savagery of the editor of that
sheet, more than to any other one cause, I think, that
that growing currency was due.

It is to the influence above referred to that we were
indebted in part for the invitation that was extended
to us to discuss the question of " Christian Citizenship "
in Washington. A certain degree of remoteness en-
ables one better to understand the conflict that is in
progress and to estimate the strength and quality of
the forces that are engaged. At any rate, the invita-
tion came from Washington, and was significant for two
reasons ; first, it was one indication that the contest
here in New York was coming to be interpreted as
something more than a local matter ; and second,
emanating from the source it did, it was a testimonial
to the significance and dignity of the Reform Move-
ment, and in that way worked encouragingly and con-
tributed something toward turning the scale once
more in our favor.

The invitation to speak in Washington bore the

I06 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

name of the Rev. Teunis S. Hamlin, pastor of the
Church of the Covenant, in which the address was to
be held, William Strong, H. L. Dawes, Charles C.
Nott, John Wanamaker, and S. B. Elkins.

The meeting was presided over by President Ran-
kin, of Howard University, who said, in the course of
his remarks introducing the speaker :

"'The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's
head.' This is the earliest prediction of the Messiah.
This process is not agreeable to the serpent. Of
course, he lifts his bruised head and gives vent to a
great hiss, and all the little serpents hiss with him. It
is the serpent's brood that has been disturbed. But
notwithstanding all that, there is God's authority for
the bruise.

" There is no sentimentality weaker than that which
regards it right to condemn wicked things in preach-
ing, but wrong to break them up in practice. There
is no folly greater than to pay city officials to make
laws and to enforce laws, and then to allow the same
officials to connive at their violation ; to make com-
mon cause with the transgressors ; as the Bible ex-
presses it, ' to consort with thieves and to be par-
takers with adulterers.'

" A man does not lay aside any of the prerogatives
of citizenship by becoming a Christian minister ; he
only consecrates them. Rev. Dr. Parkhurst, the dis-
tinguished citizen of New York, who has been invited

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY IO7

to speak here by the pastor of this church, whose
iUness and family sorrow prevent his presence, well
deserves the gratitude and honor here extended him.
It is not exactly certain what the Apostle means when
he says he fought with the wild beasts at Ephesus.

"What Dr. Parkhurst has done for New York he
has not done for New York alone. He has done it
for Washington and Chicago, and every other great
city on this continent.

" If there is any shame in the act, we Christian citi-
zens of this capital city of the nation wish by our
presence here to participate in that shame. When a
thing ought to be done, it must be done in the only
manner in which it can be done. There is no incon-
sistency between the scourge of small cords for the
back of the tempter, and the tender words, ' Neither do
I condemn thee,' for the ear of the broken-hearted peni-
tent. The Lion of the tribe of Judah is the Lamb of
God that takes away the sin of the world."

Another symptom of the returning support of com-
munity, especially among the young men, was indi-
cated by the gathering held at Scottish Rite Hall,
on Madison Avenue, on the evening of May 12th, at
which there were represented forty religious and sec-
ular societies of the city. It seemed as though the
time had come for commencing to organize the ear-
nest sentiment of the town into action. Conservative
Christians and radical sinners vrere still propounding

I08 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

to themselves the question whether the whole move-
ment was not a vicious one ab initio^ and whether
what they were inclined to think the criminality of my
proceedings, did not acquit reputable people from all
obligation to interfere with the evident criminality of
the police in their proceedings. There were confer-
ences enough held on the matter, and homiletical fire-
works enough set off to inaugurate a new Lutheran
Reformation, but in the meantime community was
still standing with its arms akimbo, the police foster-
ing and permitting crime after the same old diabolical
way, and the tovv^n settling down more and more
deeply into the quagmire of pecuniarily protected
vice. There was, however, a large element of young
life throughout the town that was willing to leave
questions of casuistry to Howe & Hummel, Sheehan,
and an indeterminate clergy, and set its hands to the
work of doing something to put a period to our mu-
nicipal woe and dishonor. Hence the meeting in Scot-
tish Rite Hall, May 12th. There were about seven hun-
dred young men present from all parts of the city; they
were not clear what they could do, but were confident
that they could do something. The meeting was held
under the auspices of the Society for the Prevention
of Crime, several of whose directors were present,
among others Louis L. Delafield, who presided, Chan-
cellor MacCracken, Dr. J- N. Hallock, David J. Whit-
ney, Frank Moss, E. A. Newell, and W. C. Stuart.
The following words, spoken by myself at that

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY lOQ

time, are introduced here mainly for the significance
that is given to them by tlie events that have trans-
pired later :

" The fault with you and with me is that we do not
individually recognize our own civic obligations to
the city of which we are "residents. In one sense of
the term I have a profound admiration for Tammany
Hall. It is an unquestioned fact that Tammany has
richly earned the position of influence and of admin-
istrative power which she holds. She has been faith-
ful, she has studied her own interests, she has looked
to what she chooses to call her obligations, and by
virtue of her fidelity she never takes a recess ; she
never goes off on a vacation, and through this devo-
tion to herself she is what she is. There is a lesson
in that. You can learn lessons even from the devil,
in the point of fidelity and unswerving devotion to the
one object that is in view. That same kind of fidelity,
of constant and conscientious recognition of the re-
lations in which we stand to our city, you and I have
not exercised, and that explains our present situation.
We have no right to sublet our obligations and let
some one else exercise them in our behalf.

"Last night there was another raid in the Tender-
loin gambling district. There is a good deal that is
funny about these gambling-house raids. There were
eighteen warrants secured by Mr. Byrnes. You have
read in the Scriptures about the house that was empty;

no OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

swept, and garnished. There is nothing so clean as
a gambling-house before a raid. Among them was a
warrant against Daly's gambling-house. These eigh-
teen houses were raided, fourteen of them were clean
and in the other four there was nothing going on,
but some of the furniture was taken. There was a
gentleman in my house last evening while this was
going On. He had been out gambling. He said that
he went up to Daly's. They told him, 'We would
like to take you in but we are doing nothing now.' I
could have told Mr, Byrnes myself that Daly's was not
running. Well, they told this gentleman, ' We know
you well, but we received instructions from the authori-
ties to keep very close until the storm blows over.'
Now, what kind of a municipal administration do you
call that ? Standing right in with each other. ' But,'
says the darkey who had his eye in the slot of the
door, ' I'll tell you what you can do. There is a place
where, until the storm blows over, we are sending our
patrons.' He went there, and, fortunately for him, he
lost what little he had ; and a singular thing about it
is that that gambling-house, though situated in the
same district, was not touched at all last night. Now
this is hypocrisy ; it is a lie straight through.

"We who are evangelical believe in a man's being
born again. The city of New York administratively
has got to be thoroughly born again. No slight modi-
fications of policy that may be made, like the sending
of a police captain from the Fourth Precinct to Goat-

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY III

ville, or the sending of one from Goatville to the
Fourth Precinct, will suffice. That does not touch
the genius of the institution. It is thoroughly, inher-
ently, and intrinsically corrupt, and it is bound to re-
main corrupt until the devil of Tammany Hall has been
thoroughly cast out and the spirit of purity and honesty
and administrative integrity has entered in its stead."

It was from this meeting that there developed the
organization now known as the City Vigilance League.
About two hundred of those present expressed a wish
to enroll themselves for active service in the cause of
municipal reform, and subscribed their names to pledge-
cards which read as follows :

" I hereby pledge myself to study the municipal in-
terests of this city, and to do everything in my power
to promote the purity and honesty of its government."

A committee of five was designated to perfect an
organization and to arrange for carrying forward work
upon lines that had been laid down by the speakers of
the evening. This committee consisted of A. S. Ly-
man, W. B. Young, H. K. Twitchell, R. M. Lloyd, and
C. H. Parkhurst, and its plan of action was submitted
and adopted on the i8th of the same month.

It would be off from the main line of our purpose to
enter into the details of the organization and work of
the City Vigilance League ; it will suffice to say that
it embraces the entire city in its scheme of operation.
Local organizations have been established in each of

112 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

the thirty Assembly Districts of the city, and the lead-
ers of those districts respectively compose the central
committee upon which devolves the responsibility
of the entire organization. Each Assembly District
leader associates with himself trusty men, sufficient in
number to have each election district represented, re-
quiring in all, therefore, 1,141 workers, with such ad-
ditional number, however, as the exigencies of the
case in the special election district may require. This
enables the League to keep in touch with each specific
locality throughout the entire town.

The League is mortgaged to no sect and to no
school of politi-cs ; its members are not seeking office,
and we are bound by the terms of our constitution to
put forward no candidates for office. Our aim is to
acquaint ourselves with our city, to study its needs, to
publish existing abuses whatever may be the party or
whoever may be the man that may be responsible for
them, and to stimulate, especially among the young
men, both of our native and foreign population, that
understanding of municipal interests that shall help to
make the municipal ballot intelligent, and that appre-
ciation of civic duties that shall help to render the
municipal ballot clean and honest. In a word, the
League represents the continuance of that straight
line of rectitude and individual self-regardlessness
needed in order to win the victory of November, and
just as much needed in order to render the fruits of
that victory an abiding possession.

CHAPTER X

MASS MEETING AT COOPER UNION

As soon as it was generally known that the Society
for the Prevention of Crime was unreservedly com-
mitted to the public interest and that it was making
war on crime, and in particular on the police as the sala-
ried protectors of crime, lines of confidence and of in-
tercommunication began presently to open themselves
between such as were being offended or injured by
the existing lawlessness, and our Society, so that we
were soon able to know, with great accuracy, the con-
dition of affairs in every part of the city. Out of
some thousands of such letters received during the
last two or three years, we reproduce here the follow-
ing as fair samples, premising that the first inserted
was addressed to Dr. Howard Crosby and written as
long ago as 1879, when Captain (now Superintendent)
Byrnes ("Burns") was in charge of the precinct to
which " Broken-hearted wife's " complaint refers. It
is at least fifteen years, therefore, since Byrnes began
to become acquainted with the iniquitous system here
prevailing, and which he has lacked the moral courage
to expose.

S

114 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

New York City, July 29, 1879.
Rev. Howard Crosby.

Sir : If you will break up the gambling hells in
Bleecker Street, Thompson, and the low dance houses
or stores turned into halls, you will do the Christian
community a service, and save many a poor woman
who is on the road to ruin. I have seen mothers beg-
ging their children home from these places night after
night. Captain Burns of the Police says he can't
break them up as they have political influence behind
them. See if you cannot.

(Signed) A Heart-Broken Wife.

Kind Sir : I would like you to close a policy shop.
It has been running for a long time. I am a citizen of
this country and I do not think it is right to have
them things in this country or in this city. I have
wrote to Police Headquarters and it did no good, so I
thought I would write to you and see if you would be
so kind as to close it up. You would receive the
thanks of me and many a sufferer of the game. It is
located at a cigar store, — Washington Street, New
York City.

Yours truly,

(Signed) A True Citizen of this Country.

New York, December 26, 1894.
Rev. Chas. E. Parkhurst.

Dear Sir : I read the IVor/d every day, and like
very much the way you show up the police. I know a
policy-shop here that pays $25.00 per month for pro-
tection (the writer tells me himself), and I have seen

OUR I'lGirr wnn tammanv 115

him write as high as $30.00 per day, and seen children
as young as ten years, yes eight years, bring in plays,
and I know he has been arrested a couple of times
and is out on bond. He gets $2.50 a day when ar-
rested.

He says if there is anything in the wind the Central
lets him know in time.

I could write and tell you more if I was sure I
would not be known, or would not get my name in the
newspapers. I know this shop is a rank swindle, and
could easily be broken up if the detectives wanted to.

I hope you will not let any reporter get a copy of
this, for if the w^-iter (policy) should see it he might
suspect. I was coming to see you at your residence,
but was not sure I would be able to see you. If I
could show up this place without being known, I
would. Yours truly,

(Signed) Joseph Brown.

Note. — Of course the above is not my true name,
but will do. J. B.

December 12, 1894.
Dear Doctor: Won't you please try and close the
policy-shop at Seventh Avenue, between Thirty-
first and Thirty-second Streets. The people all go in
through the cigar store ne.xt door. He has a private
door in the back of his store. The policy-shop is the
biggest one in the whole district. The police know
all about it, but don't care. Please^ Dr. Parkhurst,
close this infamous and dirty hole. The saloon at

, next door, is just as bad.

(Signed) Mother with Four Bovs.

Il6 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

New York, December 24, 1894.
Rev. Dr. Chas. H. Parkhurst,

No. 133 East Thirty-fifth Street,

New York City.
Dear Sir: After repeated notices to the police to
remedy the following evil, with no attention paid to
them at all, I call upon you, as a last resource, and, I
think, a sure one.

There is a liquor store at No. Rivington Street

which is, in reality, a gambling hell of the worst
character. It is open all night and on Sunday is open
all day, and inhabited by at least one hundred per-
sons who lose all their wages and worse.

The owner admits that he pays police protection,
and the officer on the post goes in there for his daily
glass of beer.

If you can do anything to close this one of many
evil places, you will confer a great favor on,
Yours respectfully,

(Signed) .

Such correspondence has been an invaluable aid to
us. A very large proportion of the letters that have
come to hand were anonymous, and therefore of no
value as before a court of law ; but they were of un-
speakable assistance to us as indicating the lines upon
which we could most confidently work, and by their
aid, supplemented by that of our detectives, we have
been able to know from one day to another, just what
was transpiring throughout the city, what orders were
being given from station-houses or from headquarters,

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY II7

and have known with what degree of rigor or laxity
laws were being enforced in the several precincts.

We soon discovered that a sudden enforcement of
law was but a desire to hoodwink the public, and that
a raid was a contrivance by which the Superintendent,
or his subordinates, attempted to amuse themselves
and delude a credulous community. It took us some
months to learn that a raid was not to be taken seri-
ously. If there are two notorious gambling-houses or
disorderly houses side by side, and one of them is
raided and the other not, only a fool will imagine that
there was any more honesty in raiding one of the two
than in leaving the other unraided. That course of
procedure has obtained in this city for three years,
and obtains to-day. Notwithstanding all this spas-
modic activity that prevailed during the months of
April and May, the Society for the Prevention of
Crime knew, and to some extent the people of the
town suspected that there was no change of sentiment
or of intention on the part of the Police Department,
and if there were to be any improved municipal con-
dition it would have to come from a grand forward
movement and a concerted protest on the part of the
people at large.

All of this paved the way for the Cooper Union Hall
Mass Meeting of May 26th. There had been a rising
demand for such meeting for some weeks. The Mail
and Express had, for a long time been engaged in
fearless warfare against police corruption, and in its

Il8 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

issue of May 13th (the date following the meeting at
Scottish Rite Hall), printed the following under the
caption :

" NOW FOR A MEETING."

More than two hundred young men, enthusiastic,
intelligent, and profoundly in earnest, agreed last
night, at the close of Dr. Parkhurst's address at Scot-
tish Rite Hall, to stand by him in his noble work.
This is the kind of Americanism and patriotism that
the hour and emergency demand. The work will grow
and the workers will increase from day to day.

It is the old story. The combat against sin is al-
ways with the right. The people are slow to move,
but when their eyes are opened to the gravity of the
situation, when the battle begins, battalion follows
battalion in the service of conscience until the over-
throw of the enemy becomes complete annihilation.

There never was another such opportunity for a re-
form movement in this city. The iniquities of Tweed
pale into insignificance beside the blackmailing oper-
ations on a stupendous scale of this Tammany-ridden
city. Dr. Parkhurst has only lifted a corner of the
blanket. If half of the truth were known the world
would stand aghast at the frightful revelation.

Think of the administration of the greatest city in
the United States, and one of the greatest in the world,
being in league with criminals, challenged with the
proof of the fact, convicted of the crime and yet de-
fying public opinion, as Tammany defies it to-day.

The Society for the Prevention of Crime was dis-
posed to withhold its support and encouragement of

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMAXV II9

such a meeting, doubting whether the time were yet
quite ripe for it, and fearing that its effect would be
to draw more sharply the line of demarcation between
those who sympathized with us and those who did not.
The pressure, however, became stronger than could
easily be resisted ; the call was issued and the meeting
held. This was on the 27th of May. David J. Whitney
and Dr. J. N. Hallock were the ones most active in per-
fecting the arrangements. The Society for the Preven-
tion of Crime has always been most loyal to the mem-
ory of its first president. Dr. Howard Crosby, and his
portrait hung back of the stage. The hall was crowded
to its utmost capacity, the audience containing a fair
percentage of women. Dr. Hallock called the meeting
to order and ex-Judge Arnoux was made Chairman.

The Chairman outlined the history of the movement
and set forth its purposes. " Many present," he said,
" are laboring under the misapprehension that this
crusade is aimed against specific houses of a criminal
character. Its guns, however, are levelled at higher
aims. The object of the movement is to make the
police do their duty, and their whole duty, or stand
before the world convicted of the presentment of the
March Grand Jury."

Ex-Judge Noah Davis, whose participation in the
breaking of the Tweed Ring made his interest in the
present cause both so natural and so gratifying, was
then introduced and enthusiastically greeted. He be-
gan by saying that the present demonstration reminded

120 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

him of the uprising of the people twenty years before,
and enlarged upon the part which at that time had
been played in the Tweed overthrow by Samuel J.
Tilden and Charles O'Conor. He continued : " You
have come here to answer the question whether or not
your boys shall be brought up in the midst of officially
protected crime. If you say that that shall not be
done, you can only say it just now by your applause,
but later, by your hearty devotion to those who have
courage to pluck aside the curtain and show just where
we live, and what we are, and what is around us. Most
men tell us that the President of this Society should
never have done what he has done ; that a minister
of the Gospel should spend his whole life persuading
mankind to make some atonement for the sin of
Adam ; that he should let all modern Adams alone ;
that he should preach upon the old line, * In Adam's
fall we sinned all.' I make no pretensions to fighting
Adam myself, but if I had been brought face to face
with the situation that confronted Dr. Parkhurst, if
my charges had been denied, if a District-Attorney
had laughed at me, if a Grand Jury had pointed the
finger of scorn at me, I would have dived to the bot-
tom of hell, if need be, to prove that I had spoken the
truth. If there be clergymen in this country, or this
city, or anywhere, who say they could not have gone
through such a thing, all I have to say is that they
know more about themselves than I know. By that I
mean only just what you think I mean."

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 121

Rabbi F. De Sola Mendes spoke in part, as follows :
" I presume that the privilege accorded me of speak-
ing a few earnest words at a notable gathering like
this, and on an occasion so auspicious of excellent re-
sult for the city in which we are proud to dwell, must
be owing to the fact that I am a member, albeit one
of the least important, of a Society for the Suppression
of Crime, which boasts of a very rare antiquity. It is
a Society older than this of New York, older than
Manhattan even, older than the United States, older
than the mother-country, England ; in fact, just as old
as the Jewish nation. When Almighty God, in the
infinitude of His wisdom, selected a certain family of
the families of the earth to evangelize the crying
iniquity, the foul vice and sin of what is conveniently
called Canaanite ' Idolatry,' then the first Society for
the Suppression of Vice was formed, and Israel was its
name. Though many another and many a better ex-
pounder of that Society's fundamental maxim, ' Holy
shall ye be, for holy am I, the Lord your God,' could
have been found to speak to you to-night, it is because
that divine commission touches and imbues even the
least of His servants that I, in behalf of your Hebrew
fellow-citizens, have come to cry ' God speed ' to the
good work so unexpectedly, so significantly, and I
may say so triumphantly, put on foot of late. . . .

" You have said. Dr. Parkhurst, that it was at the
funeral of our departed friend, who is up there. Rev.
Dr. Howard Crosby of blessed memory, that you took

122 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

upon yourself the vow to continue his vrork. I, too,
heard the hearty tribute paid that day to the illustri-
ous dead, and can imagine the surge of noble emotion
which came to you then. He was the Moses : be you
the Joshua. And as I take my seat, let me repeat to
you the olden words we have cherished among us,
spoken to Joshua by our Almighty Father in a similar
emergency in our leader's life, when he, too, was thrust
to the front by God's call to war upon and stamp out
the immorality and vice in Canaan : 'There shall not
any man be able to stand before thee all the days of
thy life ; as I was with Moses so I will be with thee ;
I will not fail thee, I will not forsake thee. Only be
strong and very courageous to observe to do accord-
ing to all the law which Moses my servant commanded
thee ; turn not to the right hand nor to the left, that
thou mayest have good success whithersoever thou
goest. Have I not commanded thee ? Be strong and
of good courage ; be not afraid, neither be thou dis-
mayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee whitherso-
ever thou goest.' Amen."

Following Rabbi Mendes, Rev. Dr. David J. Bur-
rell, after having spoken of Superintendent Byrnes in
terms of commendation, went on to say :

"There is a reservation in Superintendent Byrnes's
recent letter which I do not like. He does not seem
to be in full sympathy with the law. He seems to be
enforcing the law because he is obliged to do it, not
because he is in sympathy with it. He tells us that

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 1 23

the best way to deal with the brothels would be to
localize them and put them under the surveillance of
the police force. We have not appointed Superinten-
dent Byrnes, who is but the servant of the people, to
tell us what laws there ought to be. It is not his
function to legislate ; it is not his function even to
moralize to the people ; we ministers can do most of
the moralizing, and what we do not do you can do
after us ; but the only man in this town who has not
any right to moralize is the Superintendent of the Po-
lice ; he is appointed just to keep quiet and do what
the people tell him to do. What we demand— I like
that word ' demand ' — what we, the sovereign people,
demand, is that the law shall be enforced. The people
are in this thing, and we mean business."

Frank Moss, Esq., counsel of the Society for the
Prevention of Crime was then introduced, and although
speaking briefly, handled with the wisdom begotten of
intimate acquaintance, the matter of the Police Com-
missioners and the little confidence that could be re-
posed in them as a tribunal for the trial of captains.
He said in part :

*' Since I began to observe these matters, four po-
lice captains have been tried on charges of tolerating
vice. The result of each trial was a tie vote — two
Commissioners voting the captain guilty and two not
guilty. I was present at three of the trials. In the
first the evidence was overwhelming that vice of the
worst kind had been tolerated for years on the same

124 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

block with the station-house, notwithstanding com-
plaints of citizens, the houses being regularly reported
by the captain as disorderly.

" The tie vote of the Board has never been altered,
but, curiously, one of the Commissioners who voted
the captain guilty, at the same session voted to pro-
mote him in order to break a dead-lock, as he said.
In the two cases next tried, the gambling-houses
which had long been reported by captains at head-
quarters, were raided at the instance of private per-
sons, without the knowledge or co-operation of the
captains, and the gamblers were convicted. The cap-
tains were charged with neglect of duty. Two Com-
missioners voted them guilty and two not guilty."

A series of resolutions was presented and adopted
as follows :

We, citizens of New York, assembled at Cooper
Union Hall, May 26, 1892, at the invitation of the
Society for the Prevention of Crime, to consider the
subject of crime and its official toleration, do adopt the
following resolutions :

I. We cordially thank the Rev. Charles H. Park-
hurst, President of the Society for the Prevention of
Crime, for his courageous and self-sacrificing stand in
calling public attention to protected crime, and for his
patriotic endeavor to enlist our citizens in the work
of purifying their own city ; and we pledge our sym-
pathy and support to him and to that Society in the
great work which they have undertaken. We recog-

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 125

nize in Dr. Parkhurst qualities of heroism and persist-
ency which endear him to us.

2. We thank the Grand Jury of March, 1892, for the
promptness and fidelity with which it investigated the
subject as presented by Dr. Parkhurst for the Society,
and for its now famous presentment.

3. We demand the prompt enforcement by the Dis-
trict-Attorney, and the Police Department, and by all
other departments and officials of our government, of
all laws for the prevention of vice.

4. We invoke such action by those who are thereto
empowered as will destroy the present system of
official toleration and protection of vice and crime,
and will bring to speedy justice such ofificials particu-
larly as fail to discharge their duties because of com-
plicity with evil-doers.

5. We demand prompt and vigorous procedure by
the District- Attorney and others who have authority
against all property-owners and agents who let houses
for illegal purposes. (Long applause.) Let the axe
fall on those who reap golden harvests from vice,
whether they be officials, real-estate owners, or agents.

6. We demand that the Police Department proceed
at once and vigorously against the proprietors and
owners of gambling and disorderly houses as required
by Sections 282 and 285 of the Consolidation Act.

7. For the present condition of protected crime we
hold responsible, not only the owners of property and
police ofificials, but also those men and newspapers
who make common cause with criminals. Most es-
pecially we hold responsible those men who are in
political control of our government, and who could the

• most speedily grant the reforms that are so greatly

126 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

needed. We pledge to each other our best efforts to
compel those in authority to honestly and earnestly
enforce the criminal laws.

I shall be excused for adding the closing paragraph
from my own address, expressing, as that paragraph
does, the spirit with which the Society for the Preven-
tion of Crime has been steadily animated through all
its hard warfare :

" This is a long movement. We are not working for
next November. There is nothing that a live old
or young man will find worth working for that does
not reach away into the future. Let us not be dis-
couraged. Defeats are sometimes the very material
of victory. I do profoundly thank the February
Grand Jury for the defeat which it dealt out to me.
If it had not been for De Lancey Nicoll and the Feb-
ruary Grand Jury, I should not have been here to-
night. It takes sometimes a quick lash to stir up the
serious part of our nature.

" Though the battle be a long one we all believe, in
our consciences and before God, that victory is in
front of us, and victory for New York means victory
for every large city in the country, and when you have
redeemed the cities of the country, you have redeemed
the country in its entirety.

" If one had known nothing of the criminal strength
of the Police Department or of the depth to which its
roots had thrust themselves into the slimy, oozy soil
of Tammany Hall, it would have seemed as thougl!

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 12/

on the evening of the 26th of May, 1892, little re-
mained but to enjoy the fruits of the victory already
gained ; or, if one had taken the gathering in Cooper
Union Hall that evening as a fair expression of the
convictions of the city at large, even in its better
elements, the conclusion would have been instanta-
neous that popular sentiment was already ripe for
the overthrow of a municipal system against which
the oratory at that mass meeting was so steadily
directed, and against which the sentiment of that en-
thusiastic audience was so unequivocally expressed.
The fact was, however, that the feeling of the police
toward us at that time was not at all one of fear, but
only of irritation, and that the great mass of our
population regarded the movement far more with in-
terested curiosity than it did with heated earnestness.
The public sensation incident to the Cooper Union
meeting did not yet issue from that point in men's
hearts at which they keep their solid determinations
and their moral indignation. Perhaps we did not
realize it at that time, but the lesson was learned toil-
somely and painfully in the eighteen months follow-

CHAPTER XI

THE PULPIT AND POLITICS

There has been, during the past three years, a
good deal of discussion as to the relation proper to
exist between the pulpit and municipal politics. I
have had no disposition to crowd my own views of
that matter upon others' acceptance. Having reached
a conviction of my own, I acted accordingly ; and
while recognizing that others have as much right to
their opinion as I to mine, it has sometimes seemed as
though, if, instead of spending so much time in pub-
lishing and fortifying their opinion, they had dropped
argumentation and gone to work to minister to the
city in some better way of their own, it would have
saved a great deal of unnecessary rhetoric and ac-
complished more toward recovering us from our
municipal dishonor.

While, however, I had no wish to force my opinions
upon others, I was very willing to express them to
any that were desirous of hearing them, and accord-
ingly, at the request of the Alumni of the Union
Theological Seminary, in this city, prepared the fol-
lowing address (which seems to me not out of place

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 1 29

in a record of this kind), and which was delivered at
the Seminary Building on the 14th of May, 1894, as
follows :

I am to speak of the relation of the minister to
good government. In order fo avoid all misappre-
hension, let us start out by saying that nothing should
be allowed to interfere with the pulpit's prime obliga-
tion to convert men, women, and children to Christ in
their individual character. No one can have attended
carefully to Christ's method of working in the world
without appreciating the emphasis which he laid upon
the individual^ and without feeling the volume of
meaning there is in the fact that so many of his finest
words and deepest lessons were delivered in the pres-
ence of but a single auditor. There are no associate
results which do not hide all their roots in the separate
individualities that combine to compose such associa-
tion.

At the same time, what God thinks most of is not
a man in his individual character, but men in their
mutual and organized relations. That is the idea that
the Bible leaves off upon, and in that way throws
upon the idea the superb emphasis of finality, culmi-
nating, as Scripture does, not in the roll-call of a mob
of sanctified individualities, but in the apocalyptic
forecast of a Jwly city come down from God out of
heaven ; not men, therefore, taken as so many separate
integers, but men conceived of as wrought up into
9

I30 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

the structure of a corporate whole — social, municipal,
civic.

Men require to be sanctified, but the relations
which subsist between them require to be sanctified
also. Philemon was a Christian and Onesimus was a
Christian ; but Onesimus was still Philemon's slave.
Philemon had been converted, and Onesimus had been
converted, but the 7-elation between them had not
been converted. A good part of every man is in-
volved in his relations, and heaven is not arithmetic
but organic.

Wherever men rub against one another, therefore, the
pulpit has something to say, or ought to have some-
thing to say. This enhances prodigiously the oppor-
tunities and obligations of the pulpit, and ought to af-
fect and modify very seriously the preparation where-
with a young man equips himself for pulpit service. It
is simply appalling, the area of inquiry which at once
opens itself before him and challenges his regard so
soon as he realizes that the consummation of his mis-
sion is not to save from hell as many separate people
as he can, but to become, in God's hands, the means
of saving society here and now, and precipitating heav-
en by constructing as much terrestrial heaven as pos-
sible out of materials already in hand. That is an
idea that is working in the current mind, and that
our theological seminaries are beginning to evince
symptoms of regard for. It is a conception of the
case that is well-nigh staggering so soon as you begin

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 131

to realize how little of a num's practical life is an indi-
vidual affair, and what a vast percentage of it concerns
him in his relations to his fellows.

You may take a very large percentage of the great
questions that are always under discussion — social
questions and political questions — and you will dis-
cover that such questions are nothing more nor less
than crystallizations about an ethical nucleus. They
are not altogether ethical, but they revolve on an ethical
axis, and the pulpit wants to be prepared to manipu-
late such questions with a firm hand, rend the ethical
elements from such as are morally indifferent, and
then take the ethical elements in their clear sepa-
rateness and exhibit them, by which I mean preach
them. There is not a live question in society or in
State to-day that is not nine-tenths of it a question of
morals. And before the pulpit handles it it has got
to know how much of it lies within ethical ground and
how much without ; for woe be to the preacher who
undertakes to deal homiletically with such aspects of
a question as are relevant not to the pulpit but to the
expert.

All of this work means straining solidity of prep-
aration. It is worse than Greek, tougher than Hebrew,
or than almost any of the other antiques that ordinar-
ily ornament the curriculum of a theological seminary.
Undoubtedly the handling of these matters in the pul-
pit means friction. But there will always be friction
when there is power on its way to effect, so that, need

132 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

not alarm anybody. History is going up hill, not
down, and that always means heated bearings and
squeak in the wheels.

Of course there is a way of preaching that will keep
the axles cool. Unquestionably we might expatiate
eloquently on historic unrighteousness, and the great-
er the eloquence the greater the favor with which we
should be followed. We can malign David for his
vices, and pour canister-shot into poor Solomon for his
irregularities ; and his being a back number and hav-
ing no extant relatives to pound you with a libel suit,
the whole performance reduces to an elegant sedative,
just warm enough to stimulate the blood if the church
is cold, and cold enough to discourage perspiration if it
is July.

Here are certain moral ideas to be pushed. Who
is going to push them if the pulpit does not ? Here
are certain breaches of moral propriety and decency
on the part of the national or the municipal govern-
ment. Who is going to protest, if the pulpit does
not ? Do you say that that is going outside of your
diocese ? Well, what is your diocese ? Are you one
of God's prophets, visioned with an eye that sees right
and wrong with something of the distinctness of divine
intuition, and are you going to let that wrong lie there
as so much ethical rot and close your eyes to it and
pray, "Thy kingdom come ?"

That was the superb feature of the old prophets of
the Hebrews : they were statesmen ; they so grasped

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 1 33

the times in their Hving and pregnant realities that
everything stood out before their inspired and burn-
ing thought in solid relation to the Kingdom of God.
There was no splitting up of things into holy and
civic. That splitting and slicing process is one of the
old serpent's shrewdest devices for getting the biggest
half of the world in the range of his own quivering
fangs. Those old prophets of the Hebrews were
statesmen. They could not help being. Their eye
went so deep and wide that of necessity they flung
their arm about everything. There is not a great deal
of statesmanship in the pulpit to-day, and outside of
it there is not any — that I know of. There is politics,
but there is not statesmanship. Do you know what
the difference is between statesmanship and politics ?
Well, politics is statesmanship with the moral gristle
left out. Politics in certain respects is a good deal
worse than depravity, pure and simple. Thorough-
bred depravity has the courage of its viciousness.
About politics there is just that tincture of decency
that makes it unreliable. I have had to deal with
men that were elaborately and consistently wicked,
and I have had to deal with politicians, and I would
rather cope with ten of the former than one of the
latter. The politician is like one of those agile and
cheerful little beasts which, if you put your hand
where he isn't, he's there ; and put your hand where
he is, and he isn't there.

So I say, where are you going to get your states-

134 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

manship unless you get it from the prophets and the
pulpits? It used to abound at Washington. How
long has it been since anybody at Washington has
stood up in the strength of a Wilson, a Sumner, a
Webster, or an Elijah, and spoken the word that has
drawn to a snugger tension the moral sense of this
great people ? We used to have speeches made there
that would ring clear across the continent, and clear
the air for a decade. There are themes enough to
talk about now, and there are brains enough to talk
about them, but it takes something besides brains to
lift to a higher tone the national conscience, and to
stimulate to a quicker and fuller pulse the national
life. There is not the Samson at Washington that
will fling his arms about the two pillars and bow him-
self mightily, for while he might like to shake off the
Philistines on the roof, he fears more the inconven-
ience of being dusted by the debris and crushed on
the underside of the collapse. We never feel quite so
confident of the perpetuity of American institutions
as we do just after Congress has adjourned, and Sen-
ators and Representatives have packed their gripsacks
and gone home. We feel about Congress in our civic
relations very much as most of us here to-day do
about General Assembly in our ecclesiastical relations,
— we wish that it were at least four years between
sessions : in fact the longer the better.

And I am afraid we shall not be much better reward-
ed for our quest if we search for statesmanship in the

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 135

files of the newspaper press. This is not denying the
braininess of the press, nor its power, nor the immense
value of the service which it renders along specific
lines. But when you come to consider the secular
press as a moral force, it is not there. I do not mean
that there is no paper published, no paper in this city
published, that is a quickener of the moral ener-
gies of this city and community. What I mean is that
the daily press is, with hardly an exception, run by its
business end. The editorial page is definitely deter-
mined by monetary considerations. Journals are not
printed for the sake of stating and pushing the truth.
No man can ever do a thoroughly good thing when he
is primarily motived thereto by the dollar. You can-
not preach an inspiring sermon when you feel the
money there is in it, nor any more can you fill a
column with editorial electricity when you feel the
money there is in it. The more a paper puts in the
pockets of its stockholders, the less, probably, it puts
into the hearts and lives of its readers. Under exist-
ing conditions, then^ you cannot with much confidence
look to the newspapers for statesmanship, for states-
manship has got to have an ethical element, and
ethics doesn't pay. If you go into ethic business, you
will have to dispense with terrapin or live on a legacy.
So that at present if you are going to have states-
men you will have to look to the pulpit for them.
And there is not a better place for them. There is no
place where one would have any better right to ex-

136 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

pect them to abound. Ninety per cent, of the material
of social and civic questions being ethical, what reason
is there why pulpit prophets should not marshal the
army of event ? They used to do so, why shouldn't
they now ? If there is any Moses who can climb onto
the top of Sinai and commune with God and behold
with an unabashed eye the realities that compose the
tissue of all history, why should he not lead the wait-
ing host when he gets back to the foot of the moun-
tain ? Why leave it to dirty Aaron, who meantime has
been stripping the people and building golden calves ?
I am not talking about holding the offices ! To the
evil one with your offices ! I am talking about hold-
ing the sceptre over the consciences of people and
swinging them into beat with the pulse of the heart of
God, and into pace with the trend of his eternal pur-
pose. That is the only governance we have any care
for, and it is the only governance that governs too.
Talk about the diminishing power of the pulpit ?
There is power enough if the pulpit will rise to the
stature of its prophetic dignity, and assert itself and
exercise its power. I do not believe that so far forth
the pulpit was ever so powerful as it is to-day. I do
do not believe that virtue ever respected it more, or
that vice ever hated it and feared it more than it does
to-day. If the pulpit is honest, intelligent, untram-
melled, anxious for nothing so much as to be the
oracle of God and to see the Lord's Prayer turned into
history, why, there is nothing that can stand alongside

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 1 37

of it in point of conscious and confident authority. It
seizes questions on those sides that are correlated
with the conscience, and handles them with that poise
of assurance and challenge that stirs up no end of ma-
lignity perhaps, but that allows no room for retreat ;
handles them, too, with that long regard and with that
impassioned sense of whatsoever is eternal that obvi-
ates the necessity of partisan discount. There is not
a knave in this city, nor any corporation of knaves,
that would not rather have its character portrayed by
the most influential journal in town, than to have it
portrayed by a Christian minister ; always being under-
stood though by a Christian minister, one who tells
the truth as before God and only for the truth's sake,
and who is prepared to keep telling it till he wears
through the epidermis into the quick.

When you know you are right, and can feel it all
through you, just as distinctly as Elijah, standing up in
front of Ahab, felt the three years* drought that was
coming, there is a dash of omnipotence in the word
you speak. Its censures fall upon current iniquity
with the hard thud of a sledge-hammer. The possi-
bilities of all statesmanship are in it, for it beholds as
with prophetic vision, the thread of eternal principle
upon which alone the events of history can be per-
manently strung ; and so is qualified, as with the in-
cisiveness and fearlessness of prophetic utterance, to
state eternal principle in a manner to the bracing of
virtue and the paralysis of vice.

138 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

And I am saying what I know. I uttered only-
thirty minutes of indictment against the blood-suck-
ing scoundrels that are draining the veins of our body
municipal, and they were all set wriggling like a lot of
muck-worms in a hot shovel. I am not such a fool as
to suppose that it was the man that said it that did
the work ; nor that it was what was said that did the
work, for it had been said a hundred times before with
more of thoroughness and detail.

It zaas the pulpit that did the tvork. Journalistic
roasting these vagabonds will enjoy and grow cool
over. But when it is clear that the man who speaks
it is speaking it not for the purpose of putting money
into his pocket or power into his party, but is speak-
ing it because it is true, and in speaking it appreciates
his oracular authority as one commissioned of God to
speak it, there is a suggestion of the Judgment-Day
about it, there is a presentiment of the invisible God
back of it, that knots the stringy conscience of these
fellows into contortions of terror. Waning power of
the pulpit? There is all of power in the pulpit that
there is of God voicing Himself through the man who
stands in the pulpit.

Now, my brethren in the Christian ministry, here is
a field for you ; a field that is as broad as your intelli-
gence, and as vast as the indwelling Spirit with which
you have been divinely baptized. It '\% your field. If
your ministry is being rendered in this city, for in-
stance, the associate life of this city, with all of civic

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 1 39

concern that goes to make up that life, is as justly
subject to the mastery of your inspired and imperial
words as were the people of Israel amenable to the
holy dictatorship of a Moses, a Samuel, an Elijah. Do
not allow yourselves to be ostracized from your own
kingdom and your own throne either by custom,
cowardice, or the devil. I know we are told that
we ought not to mi.\ in the earthy pursuits or to trail
our clerical robes through the dust of this secular
life ! The idea of a rabble of cut-throats, thieves,
thugs and libertines presuming to stand up and tell
God's prophets to keep their hands off of the ark of
the covenant when the sole regard they have for the
ark is their sacrilegious appetite for the golden pot of
manna that is preserved in the interior of the ark !
Don't let these dirty hypocrites fool you. There is
moral material enough in community but it lacks
leadership. The prophets of God are here to meet
that exigency. That is what they are for ; to foster
and train moral sentiment, to compact and marshal
it, and hold it along lines of earnest and intelligent de-
votement to the common weal.

This does not at all involve entrance into the de-
tails of matters and becoming personally complicated
in the intricacies of administration. That is another
affair altogether, and one for which the prophet's
previous training can scarcely be supposed to make
him competent. But the determinative factor in all
personal government (as opposed to brute govern-

I40 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

ment) is a matter of moral sentiment, and that is a
commodity of which God's pulpit servants are, ex
officio, the priests.

There are all sorts of influences — the influence of
pelf, the influence of self-seeking, the influence of
partisanship — which is simply self-seeking on an en-
larged scale — there are all sorts of influences that
are operating powerfully to degrade the quality of
associate life, and to debase the tone of civic admin-
istration, and the pulpit is the source to which you
have got to look for that counteracting energy which
shall set truth and righteousness before the people in
that substantiality of body and definedness of outline
which shall quicken the thought, impress the con-
science, invigorate the purpose, nerve the arm, and
drive sneaking iniquity to cover. Try to conceive
what would be the effect upon this city if but a dozen
of the representative prophets of each of the denom-
inations were to conceive of themselves, severally, as
standing before the collective and impersonated de-
pravity of our municipality in the same attitude of
conscious divine authority in which Elijah confronted
Ahab ; by next November you would not have enough
Tammany Hall left to make it real interesting to
depict it.

My brethren in the Ministry, if I have spoken ear-
nestly I have spoken so because I feel the situation
and know that not a word has been uttered but what is
as true as holy writ. Our national security, the achieve-

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 141

ment of what we believe to be our national destiny
is not a matter of wealth nor of population, nor of
territorial area, it is a matter of national righteous-
ness ; it is a matter of honest laws honestly executed.
It is a matter of nominating to positions of official re-
sponsibility, and electing when they have been nomi-
nated, and sustaining when they have been elected,
men who are God-fearing, who respect truth because
it is true, righteousness because it is holy, and who
conceive of office as a sacred trust, and a holy stew-
ardship. Now, brother, to take an overt and aggres-
sive position in pursuance of that end, eulogizing
official integrity and damning official corruption, is
part of the duty to which you are called. There is no
man that can do it or that can begin to do it with so
much effect as an accredited and anointed prophet of
God. Men do not care for men, but words that be-
tray the symptoms of a divine sanction fasten upon
the soul with a grip that cannot be dislodged, and the
hope of the new American civilization, like that of the
ancient Hebrew, is still vested in them whom God has
chosen to be His prophets.

CHAPTER XII

Gardner's arrest and trial

We have now traversed with a good deal of detail,
the four months of 1892 following upon the initial ser-
mon preached in February of that year. The lines
were now distinctly drawn and the battle fairly on.
Each of the two opponents had learned pretty well to
know his adversary, and it was beginning to be felt
that the battle would not cease except with the com-
plete defeat of one or the other of the combatants.
The ground has, in the preceding chapters, been laid
out with so much of definiteness that from this time on
our narrative can proceed with much greater rapidity.
Very little worthy of record transpired during the
summer months of '92. Our Society suffered sadly in
the loss by death in July of Mr. David J. Whitney, an
indefatigable and fearless worker in the cause, a mem-
ber of the Executive Committee, and one of the char-
ter members of the Board. The vacancy thus created
in the Executive Committee was filled by the election
of Frank Moss, Esq., who had been, since 1887, the
Society's attorney.

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 143

At this point in the narrative better than at any
other, perhaps, it is my pleasure as well as duty to
recognize the services which have been rendered by
Messrs. T. D. Kenneson and Frank Moss, as members
of the Executive Committee of the Society for the
Prevention of Crime. The community has no ap-
preciation of the amount of time and effort which
have been expended by these two gentlemen in the
interests of our city during the years past. There
is altogether too much disposition to bestow the
credit of the issue upon the President of the So-
ciety, and vastly too little recognition of the fact that
if he has been able to accomplish anything, it is be-
cause of tlie wise and tireless support of these two col-
leagues. Our relations have been those of unbroken
harmony. Our mutual confidence has been complete,
and all questions of moment have been decided by our
combined judgment.

Neither will it be considered by Mr. Kenneson as
unjust to himself if I emphasize especially the faithful
service rendered by Mr. Moss. His relation as at-
torney to the Society involved a special draft upon
his time and energy. It ought to be understood by
our citizens that during all the years that he has served
the city, devoting to it sometimes for many days to-
gether, his entire energy, he has not received a dol-
lar of compensation ; indeed, the terms of our Con-
stitution forbid that the services of any member
should be remunerated (except by the love of our

144 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

friends and the hatred of our enemies). Mr. Moss
has had long experience in deahng with the vicious-
ness of our Police, and it was with reference to this
matter that the late Dr. Crosby was writing under
date of July 26, 1887, when he said : "Whatever may
be the issue of the Williams matter, Mr. Moss has es-
tablished a reputation for wisdom, boldness, and en-
ergy, which any lawyer might covet. He will be
known by the public as a resolute defender of the
City's purity."

Aside from the three members of the Executive
Committee already specified, the following gentlemen
have been prominently and officially connected with
the Society, and devoted to its interests during the
last three years :

David J. Whitney,* William A. Harding, William
H. Arnoux, Edward A. Newell, Henry M. MacCracken,
Abbott E. Kittredge, Thaddeus D. Kenneson, Frank
Moss, Lewis L. Delafield, William C. Stuart, J. N. Hal-
lock, Hiram Hitchcock, Noah Davis.

Great injustice would be done did we not also men-
tion the members of our detective force, upon whose
integrity, fidelity, and skill we have depended in all
the executive work of the Society ; who have exposed
themselves to peril and obloquy, but who have identi-
fied their interests with our own, and to whom, there-
fore, the gratitude of the public as well as of our
Society is due for the results which have been accom-

* Deceased.

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY I45

plished. Those especially deserving honorable men-
tion are the following :

John H. Lemmon, Edgar A. Whitney, Arthur F. Den-
net, Benjamin F. Nott, Martin Van Ryn, Henry Burr.

Our detective force during the autumn of 1892 was
small, and most of the work was done by C. W. Gardner.
He understood well, however, the field in which he
was employed by us to operate, and was by this means
a continuous irritation to the goldbanded and brass-
buttoned characters among whom his services were
rendered.

It was natural enough, therefore, for Superintendent
Byrnes to think it an important part of his ofificial duty
to interpose as many obstacles as possible to our So-
ciety's activity. There is nothing to show that either
he, or any of his subordinates, has spent so many anx-
ious days or watchful nights over any matter as they
have over the sincere attempts which we have been
making for the past three years to diminish the vol-
ume of crime.

An instance of the above occurred near the end of
November of that year, as appears from the following,
taken from the Herald of the 30th of that month :
" A rule will be reported at the next meeting of the
Board of Police Justices, which provides that here-
after, warrants shall be issued only to persons who are
authorized by law to execute the same. This rule
will prevent agents of the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst's Society
from executing warrants as heretofore.
10

146 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

" The matter was brought to the attention of the
PoHce Commissioners by Superintendent Byrnes, who
represented that the habit of issuing warrants to irre-
sponsible parties ought to be stopped.

" Dr. Parkhurst in speaking of the matter last night
said : ' This has been a fair and square fight all the
way through between the people whom Superintendent
Byrnes represents and the people we represent. I
fully understand that when Mr. Byrnes suggested that
change in the matter of issuing "warrants, it was a
blow aimed at us. Mr. Byrnes and his followers have
no love for us, and, without mincing matters, I think
I may say that we reciprocate the feeling heartily.

" ' I am glad this change has been made, because it
separates us, and that influential part of the community
we represent, from those whom we wish to fight. And
we shall go right on fighting them, too, and the more
obstacles they place in our path, the worse it will be
for them, for we shall spare no pains to put the public
in possession of the facts. So that this fight, which
they are making against us, is going to strengthen our
cause rather than weaken it.' "

We are not at this point raising any question as to
the wisdom of the rule proposed by Superintendent
Byrnes, we are only calling attention to the fact that
it was he that moved in the matter, and that the im-
mediate effect of that rule when adopted, would be
to embarrass the operations of our detectives ; it
merely occurs to us to ask whether inasmuch as he

OUR FIGHT Willi TAMMANY 147

was drafting rules to obstruct our detectives, it would
not have been eminently commendatory for him at
the same time to have drafted some rules that would
have obstructed the criminal operations of some of
his own detectives. I speak of them here as criminal
because they have been shown to be such by the Lexow
Committee. Is it that he enjoyed the criminality of
his detectives more than he did that of our own ? Or
that he gave more interested and concerned attention
to the movements of our detectives than he did to his ?
The next move in the same direction was the arrest
of Detective Gardner, less than a week later, that is,
December 4th. This was one of the severest blows
ever experienced by our Society, and yet in the issue,
as we shall soon see, made larger contributions than
any other single cause to the grand overthrow of last
November ; it is for that reason that some space needs
to be accorded to it in any thorough account of our
three years' work. This is no place to discuss the
question of Gardner's guilt or innocence ; all that in
this connection we shall have any interest to say about
the case will hold with equal force whichever of the
two alternatives the reader may choose to adopt. Al-
though in justice to Mr. Gardner, it ought to be said
that scarcely anyone, outside of Gardner himself,
is as qualified as the Executive Committee of the
Society for the Prevention of Crime to arrive at a
safe conclusion upon the question, and neither one of
the three members of that committee has the sug-

148 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

gestion of a suspicion of Gardner's guilt. I might
add, also, that our conviction is shared in by the
crooks and thugs of the town — parties whose moral
sense is certainly badly blunted, but who necessarily
become expert in tracking the devices of the police,
and exceptionally qualified to interpret their motives
and methods.

The charge brought against Mr. Gardner was that
of attempted blackmail ; he was accused of trying to
extort protection money from the keeper of a vile re-
sort. The Police Department, from centre to circum-
ference, was stirred by the vast possibilities of the
case. We are speaking within bounds when we say
that not for many years have the energies of the en-
tire Department been so concentrated in securing the
conviction of a reputed criminal. It hardly needs to
be said, in view of the late developments of the Lexow
Committee, that that was not because of any antipathy
to blackmail. The police objected to Gardner's black-
mailing anyone for the reason that they wanted the
monopoly of the business themselves, and were anxious
to secure his conviction, because they thought that in
convicting him they would be convicting and para-
lyzing our Society, and thus be destroying the only
obstacle they knew of to the continuance of the black-
mailing operations in which they were themselves
engaged. Aside from the defendant, the conspicuous
actors in the drama of Gardner's conviction and prose-
cution, were the prostitute Clifton, Recorder Smyth,

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 1 49

and Captain Devery. It is a queer commentary on
the animus of the whole transaction, that the prosti-
tute is now under indictment, that Smyth was in-
dicted at the polls on the 6th of November (in part
because of his demeanor in this very prosecution), and
Devery has been discharged from the Police Service
for conduct unbecoming an officer. In view of all
this, it is not very difficult to judge how much of
Gardner's arrest and conviction was due to a fine
moral enthusiasm, and how much of it was damnable
conspiracy.

If in the way in which the thing has just been pre-
sented there is a tinge of bitterness, we can con-
scientiously declare that that sentiment is not due to
the fact of Gardner's arrest and conviction, but to the
fact that, even granting Gardner's guilt, he was doing
just that which Byrnes, Devery, and all their associ-
ates knew the entire Police Department to be engaged
in — levying blackmail — and that their stupendous
and organized scheme to "down" Gardner was simply
a sublime effort to bolster up official iniquity, and that
their colossal laments over the " Fall of poor Gard-
ner" were a clever, though sneaking device, for disguis-
ing habitual and systematic corruption of their own.

Gardner was not arrested by Mr. Byrnes and his
subordinates because he was a criminal, but because
he was our detective, and because he made it more
difficult for Mr. Byrnes's department to act out its own
remunerative depravity. We knew all this at the

I50 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

time ; subsequent developments have enabled the rest
of community to know it.

The blow dealt by Gardner's arrest was a shrewd
one. Temporarily it discredited the Society for the
Prevention of Crime in the public estimate. Our
cause was not going to prevail until matters had
reached that stage where temporary defeat on our
part was not going to shake the town's confidence.
That time came, but not till a little later. On the 5th
of December the Society for the Prevention of Crime
stock was very low and continued falling for months.
Our citizens trusted us in seasons of good weather but
not between times.

One of the first effects of Gardner's arrest was that
the Executive Committee came together and agreed
to strengthen our detective force. Money it was
hard to obtain, and members of the Society advanced
the requisite funds. A good deal of our interest and
attention was necessarily devoted for a time to Gard-
ner's trial, but the purposes of the Executive Com-
mittee were, under this adverse experience, toughened
into more strenuous determination, and our transient
adversity both put us upon defining more sharply our
own lines of action and upon securing detectives suf-
ficient in character, calibre, and number to prosecute
those lines. In point of effectiveness we were in finer
shape shortly subsequent to Gardner's arrest than we
had ever been before. How much we owe to the
vicious opposition of the enemy !

OUR KIGHT WITH TAMMANY 151

It will be impossible to go into the details of Gard-
ner's trial, which opened on January 30, 1893. It was
felt by all who had any appreciation of the situation,
that the contesting parties who appeared in the suit
were representatives simply, and that the real plaintiff
and defendant were nothing less than the two great
elements of our municipality that were striving for
mastery, two great systems of administration that
aimed at nothing less than each other's overthrow. It
was not Gardner that we were trying to defend, nor
was it Gardner that they were trying to convict. The
sense of this intensified all proceedings, and explains
much of the passionate interest with which the case
was watched, and the passionate energy with which it
was conducted. In that trial the Police Department,
from the Commissioners down, was distinctly con-
scious of its direct antagonism to that entire element
in community which demanded an honest mainten-
ance of honest laws and of the common weal. That
consciousness explained the large and eager attend-
ance of high police officials, and was distinctly mani-
fested in the demeanor of Recorder Smyth, who sat
on the Bench and who was known to be the close per-
sonal friend of Superintendent Byrnes. One of the
leaders of the New York Bar some days since stated
that, in his opinion, it was Smyth's intention to have
Gardner convicted. If this was the case, it only goes
to show how much we had to contend with in trying
to make head against a combination of Police, Demi

152 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

Monde, and Judiciary. But what is quite as interesting
is that this same member of the Bar just quoted, went
on to remark that the Recorder's bearing on this
occasion (such as his mode of dealing with the counsel
for the defence, and his repeated prompting of the
disreputable Clifton while on the witness stand) dis-
turbed the confidence which the Bar had had in
Recorder Smyth's judicial integrity, or at least their
confidence in his judicial equipoise. In this way the
Recorder's prodigal use of the power of his position
(or what an observant public considered to be such)
stands in intimate relation with the move which the
City has just succeeded in making to throw him out
of his position, and to put a better upon the Bench in
his stead.

And what is still more interesting is that the man
by whom the city has just replaced Smyth is exactly
the man against whom Smyth on this very occasion
made special display of judicial and prejudicial power
— John W. Goff. This is one of the most startling
instances known to us of the revenges wrought by
time. Mr. Goff fought valiantly and fearlessly in be-
half of what he considered to be the rights of his
client. Smyth took judicial offence at the bluntness
of Mr. Goff's language, adjudged him in contempt and
fined him $200 ; but a higher court than that of
Smyth sat on the 6th of November last, which in-
vited Mr. Smyth to step down and Mr. Goff to move
up to his place. In behalf of the New York Bar,

OUR FICIIT WITH TAMMANY I 53

Joseph H. Choate, Esq., made a plea before the Re-
corder in Mr. Goff' s interest, the distinguishing feature
of which was that while there was nettle enough in it
to sting the Recorder's nerves, the nettle was rubbed
in with such polished courtesy that the poor victim
had to behave as though he were being dosed with the
Balm of Gilead.

It is not pertinent to the main object of our story
to dwell upon the matter of Mr. Gardner's conviction
and sentence, his temporary confinement in the Tombs
and subsequent release, the reversal of the Recorder's
judgment, the carrying of the case to the Court of
Appeals, and the final ordering of a new trial. It is
enough for our purpose to have shown that his arrest
and trial accomplished four most important and health-
ful results : It brought about the reorganization and
strengthening of our office ; it suggested to the com-
munity, under startling colors, the organized combina-
tion seeming to exist between the police, the prosti-
tutes, and the Bench ; it prepared for the defeat of
Recorder Smyth ; and last and best of all, it cordially
introduced to the knowledge and confidence of this
community, our coadjutor, John W. Goff.

CHAPTER XIII

THE SOCIAL EVIL

The Social Evil has played an important part in the
history of our work, and far more important than it
would have done had not the intent of the movement
been, at the outset, quite generally misapprehended,
and had not the Police Department utilized that mis-
apprehension to the end of discrediting our efforts,
and thereby breaking the force of our attack. Our
reference to the matter here is not made with any in-
tention of discussing the problem which it involves.
We have steadily avoided being drawn into any argu-
ment in reference to it, and that for two reasons ; first,
our crusade was not a crusade against sexual vice
or any other vice ; our warfare was only against the
police considered as the salaried protectors of vice.
And we have felt that for us to discuss the proper
method of dealing with the Social Evil would be only
to confuse the issue and to side-track the entire
movement. If we commenced our crusade by the
visitation of disorderly houses, it was only because
that was the easiest means by which police indiffer-

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY I 55

ence to blatant crime in this city could be brought to
light and made public.

The second reason why it is unwise for us or for
anyone else to discuss just now the proper method of
handling the Social Evil in this city, is that, as yet, the
conditions here are not such as to make the discussion
worth the breath that is expended upon it. The pres-
ent extent of the evil is no measure of what it would
be under normal conditions, and we cannot consider
the question intelligently till normal conditions are
reached. What we mean is this : that social vice has
been so protected and encouraged by the filthy offi-
cials who control the department, that the number of
abandoned women and disorderly houses now existing
in the city is no measure of what it would be if we had
a police force, from top down, who conceived of sexual
crime as an evil to be suppressed, not as capital to
draw dividend from. I have had women of this class
tell me in my own house that they did not belong here,
but that they came here from outside because they
knew that in New York the police would protect them.
That fact is known all over. The police of this city
have been enticing prostitutes from other cities and
States to come to New York, in order that they might
be the means of clothing their own wives and daughters
and living in style, quadrupling in comfort and ele-
gance anything they could maintain on their legiti-
mate salaries. It will, therefore, be time to discuss
the Social Evil when we have police officials whose am-

156 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

bition it is to reduce, not extend, the number of prosti-
tutes, and when that number, therefore, falls to its
normal figure.

The efforts we have made to demonstrate the crimi-
nal negligence of the police have resulted indirectly in
the raiding of a great many houses which it formed
no part of our plan to disturb. And the brutality with
which such raids have often been conducted has been
steadily availed of by the police, and by our enemies
outside of the force, to embarrass and discredit our
work. But with all of the misunderstanding that was
occasioned in this way, and purposely promoted, there
is no room to doubt that an unprecedentedly large
number of unfortunate women have, during the past
two years, been brought to realize not only the pre-
cariousness of their mode of life but its essential deg-
radation.

There is in our city deep interest in this question,
and I venture to introduce here a statement of the
cases of three or four of the very large number of
young women who have recently been led by the dis-
turbed condition of affairs to abandon their disrepu-
table life, and who have come to us for counsel and
help. I have, for the past fourteen months, employed
a young woman with special reference to working
among this class of people, and the statements sub-
joined are given largely in her words :

" K. S • is an interesting case. She came from

Cherry Street, where she had lived three years as an

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 1 5/

abandoned woman. She says she used often to wish she
could get out of her life, but she had no place to go
in the repentant moods, and then she would harden
her heart again and make herself think she did not
want to go. When the house in which she was living
was raided, she was compelled to go. She sat on the
doorstep of her former home, wondering what she
was to do now that she had been forced into
the street, when suddenly it came to her like a flash
that perhaps this was for the best after all, and per-
haps she could be good again, and turn from the old
wicked life. She was taken in at the Mission at
which she applied, and is happy there, and has
already come forward desiring to be converted.
She was one of the most sinful and degraded type.
She told the Mission friends that she had drunk eight
gallons of whiskey in three days, and she was very ill
with delirium tremens on her arrival. But for the
seeming misfortune which shut her off from her old
means of gaining a livelihood, she would still be deep
in her old life of sin and degradation."

" L. L is another interesting girl, educated, gen-
tle, and lady-like. She came from the South about six
months ago with a man who had betrayed her. Af-
ter a day or two in the city she entered a disrepu-
table house. At the end of three or four weeks she
was overcome with disgust at the life she was liv-
ing, but, a stranger in the city, and without friends,
she did not know what to do or where to go.
She had been in the house six months when it
was raided. She happened to be there at the
time, and was arrested and sent to jail for ten days.

158 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

While in the jail a missionary came to her, and the
girl begged her to help her leave the old life. She
was taken to one of the ' Homes,' and is now there.
Nothing, she says, would induce her to return to the
sinful life she has learned to detest. ' I thank Dr.
Parkhurst from the bottom of my heart,' she said."

" M. T was well educated and had money

enough at home, but was betrayed while visiting a
friend. After that her downfall was rapid. She began
to drink and drank heavily, and went rapidly from
bad to worse until she was finally found in a saloon,
after one of the recent raids, half-desperate, half-re-
pentant, and a hand was held out to her just in time.
She said that she had been turned out of her house
into the streets, and though she hated those who had
done her this apparent injury, it had made her, for the
first time in a long while, think what she was doing,
and she began to long for a different life. She, too,
has been provided for, and is being watched by inter-
ested friends who desire to help her."

Our missionary says there is a general sense of in-
jury among the girls who are turned out, but it is be-
cause they misunderstand the motives of the whole
movement. They say, " It is all very well to close
the houses, but to turn us out into the streets, home-
less and penniless, is terrible." They do not know
that Dr. Parkhurst will provide for all who desire to
leave the old life, and that they can obtain food and
shelter simply by asking for it. When this is explained
to them they say, " Oh, that's different." The police-

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 1 59

men turn them against the Doctor. All the girls in
the Homes are doing well, and all say that but for the
trouble which drove them into the street they would
never have been able to cut loose from the old life.
Two girls said to our missionary, "Well, I would never
have left it myself, for what else was there for me to
do ? " Some of the girls are surprisingly well educated
and gentle in their manner, though the life is so terri-
bly degrading it soon kills their better side. It is a
curious fact that not one passes under her own name,
the name of her father and mother, but assumes a
name as soon as she enters the life."

Another lady having a large experience with this
class of women says :

" There are more ' rounders ' (the homeless creatures
who have wandered for years in the streets) that have
beds this winter than ever before, and more meals
given them. In all my long experience in the work,
I have never known such efforts to be put forth by
Christian people as this winter. Dr. Parkhurst and
his glorious work has stirred everybody up. If he
has done nothing else, he has waked up the Christian
Churches. It is making the girls stop to think, and
it has certainly given vice a severe set-back. It is no
longer open and daring.' '

" B, H had lived a fast life for the past six years,

a drunkard and a fallen girl. She lived at one time
with Mrs. , of — Delancey Street. She would

l6o OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

gladly have left her sinful life long ago, but lacked
courage to come out from her old companions. Four
weeks ago the house was closed, but after a week she
returned to the house and was taken in again, and for
a week led the same life. Two weeks ago, Sunday
night. Captain Cortright came and closed the place
again. She then thought of her former days when
she was a pure girl, and resolved to do right. De-
cember 24th she came to the Florence Mission, and
since then has showed every sign of being a changed
girl. Her heart goes out in gratitude that God allowed
her to be thrown out of her old life, and that He has
saved her from a drunkard's grave."

" A. B , when first turned out of her old life, was

directed to Dr. Parkhurst by a saloon-keeper, who
told her that he had already sent one girl there, and
that she had been placed in a ' Home.' On first leaving
the house where she had been staying, she told a man
whom she met on the street that she was going to Dr.
Parkhurst. He told her that she was a fool to go,
that Dr. Parkhurst sent all the girls that applied to
him to the Island for four months. So she did nothing
till she met the saloon-keeper, who urged her to go,
and assured her that Dr. Parkhurst did help the girls
who came to him anxious to lead a new life, and that
she could be sure of a welcome from him."

It has been something of a trial to know that at the
very time we were trying to provide food and homes
for the girls that the police were throwing out into
the street, the Police Commissioners or their pals were

OUR FIGHT Wrril TAMMANY l6l

trying to make it appear that \vc were responsible for
police brutality, and that the object of our movement
was to occasion the poor girls the largest possible an-
noyance and privation. The mistake the police finally
made was in overdoing the matter, and this occurred,
particularly in the "Tenderloin," early in December of
1893. In the midst of a bitter cold night, the police
went through the district making general havoc, driv-
ing the girls out into the snow, and with a vicious
malignity, in which they are experts, gave the terror-
stricken victims to understand that this was all of it
the doings of " Old Parkhurst." Indeed the girls were
allowed to understand that the raiding was being done
by detectives of our own Society.

My house was literally besieged with the poor, hun-
gry unfortunates who came, a part of them to get
food from me, and a still larger part to damn me.
People are even yet sometimes expressing surprise
that I have so little admiration and respect for our
police force ! I believe that from top down, with
some splendid exceptions, they are the dirtiest, crook-
edest, and ugliest lot of men ever combined in semi-
military array outside of Japan and Turkey.

The " Tenderloin " business, however, was over-
(1"U', and wrought its own fine reaction. It soon be-
came noised abroad that we had not had a detective in
the " Tenderloin " precinct for months, and the curses
began gradually to roll off from our shoulders onto
those of the blue-coated brutes to which they belonged ;
II

l62 OUR PLIGHT WITH TAMMANY

and it then, for the first time, began to be under-
stood throughout the ranks of the unfortunate wom-
en that it was the poHce that were persecuting the
women, and that what we were in pursuit of was the
police.

I sent out the following letter, which, by the cour-
tesy of the press, was printed in the morning journals
of December 9th :

To the Editor of .

Sir : It having come to my knowledge that a con-
siderable number of women have, by the action of the
police, been suddenly thrown out upon the streets,
may I avail myself of the courtesy of your columns to
say that I shall gladly render all needed assistance to
any of them who may desire to abandon their old ways
and return to a life that is pure and womanly. We are
sorry to have anyone suffer, and yet, of course, our
offer can be made only to such as have a purpose of
forsaking their criminal relations, and this offer we
cordially and affectionately extend, not only to those
who have been recently evicted, but to any women
anywhere in the town who are at present living in
houses of the description of those just closed, but who
are anxious to change their condition, and to adopt a
mode of life that is honorable and self-respecting. We
are gratified that our motives as a Society are, in this
respect, becoming better understood, and while, of
course, we shall go on with increased steadfastness in
our work of making it difficult for the police to hold
over these women a hand of criminal protection, we
shall be just as constant in our efforts to afford Chris-

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 163

tian protection from hunger and exposure to any who
m:iy desire to enter the ways of virtue and lionorable
self-support.

(Signed) C. H. Parkhurst,

President of the Society for the
Prevention of Crime.

.V public appeal was also made for money, and
handsomely responded to. The raiding went on in
that same wild way which regularly characterizes the
action of the police, when there is any action, and the
girls came to our house in droves. The various
"Homes" of the city opened their doors promptly
and hospitably, and no one was allowed to suffer who
showed any desire to meet us frankly, and to return to
a life of purity and womanliness.

The results of this can be seen in a large number of
voung women, some of them still resident here, others
returned to their homes in the country, one even
studying to be a missionary, who are now living
honorable lives, and who, with purified and grateful
hearts are honoring God and blessing mankind, la-
menting the past, but making it an incentive to watch-
fulness in the present and womanly effort for the
future.

This whole event, interesting as it may be as a
chapter in the moral history of the city, specially con-
cerns us here only because of its effect in helping our
criminal and distressed classes to understand the
spirit of our movement ; it enabled them to come at

l64 OUR FIGHr WITH TAMMANY

the fact from a new stand-point, that not ourselves, but
the Tammany police were their real persecutors, and
so was one of the influences contributing to the suc-
cessful effort at emancipation made by them on the
6th of last Novemben

CHAPTER XIV

BYRXES'S EFFORT TO DISCREDIT THE CRUSADE

Superintendent, Inspectors, Captains and Com-
missioners had been expecting that the "storm would
blow over." On the contrary, there were growing
signs of the storm's becoming chronic, and it appears
to have been thought that some stalwart move must
be vigorously made looking to the clearing of the air,
and that some summary blow must be dealt that would
abruptly silence and crush out the Society for the Pre-
vention of Crime and its following.

Two blows were delivered in quick succession, both
of them with the design of crippling the Society, in the
one instance by discrediting the Society's detective,
Gardner, in the other by discrediting the Society's
President,

Detective Gardner was arrested oa December 4,
1892. Byrnes undertook to crush me oa December
6th. He used Devery and a prostitute to pulverize
Gardner, and the reporters to blacken me. Reference
is made to this matter of the Byrnes correspondence,
in the first place, for the reason that it forms an im-
portant chapter in the history of the three years ; and

1 66 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

again for the reason that it will give community an
opportunity to acquaint itself afresh with the qual-
ity and genius of the unique personality under whose
supervision our police force has reached its present
phenomenal stage of development, and under whose
supervision, if the v/ill of his accomplices and admirers
could be done, that same police force would secure its
reorganization. According to the reports printed at
the time, Mr. Pjyrnes seems to have pondered his ver-
bal assault upon me with considerable deliberation,
and to have called the representatives together at his
office in order that his challenge might be both widely
and correctly published. The matter of it appeared in
the morning papers of December yth. As reported in
the Herald of that date, it reads as follows :

" ' No quarter for Parkhurst.' So in substance
said Superintendent Byrnes at ten o'clock last night,
when, in his private office at Police Headquarters, he
launched a thunder-bolt by which he hopes to crush
the ministerial crusader."

" ' Now, gentlemen,' said he, ' I had intended to
issue to-night a full and complete statement of
facts in reply to statements made in a general way
against the Police Department of this city by the
Rev. Dr. Parkhurst. I find, however, that to com-
plete the statement to-night will be impossible. It
will be ready for you probably to-morrow.

" 'I have, however, this to say at once for publica-
tion. Never before have I criticised Dr. Parkhurst.

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 167

but now I flatly challenge his motives, and declare that
he makes statements against the Department I repre-
sent, without evidence to support them and without
belief in them himself.

" ' This so-called crusade of the Doctor, I am now
prepared to state, was started by him and several well-
known members of his congregation, with motives of
revenge against this Department bred by a policeman's
refusal to testify to suit them in a certain divorce
suit. That suit was brought by a young member of
Dr. Parkhurst's church against her husband. The
Doctor and several influential parishioners rallied
around her, and because the policeman refused to
testify to order, they invented this alleged crusade.

" ' The divorce was finally secured, and then promptly
followed the Doctor's historic call on Hattie Adams.
Masked though it was, that was the beginning of the
attack by Parkhurst and his church followers upon the
Police Department. Now, gentlemen, I come to the
gist of the whole business,' and the Superintendent
paused for an instant as though to freshly consider
the important statements to follow.

" ' Reluctantly I say this much. I have letters in my
possession showing conclusively that Parkhurst and
certain members of his church are banded together to
secure evidence compromising to the highest officials
in this city.

" 'These letters further show that Parkhurst and his
associates resort to means that seem most dishonor-

1 68 OUR PLIGHT WITH TAMMANY

able to accomplish this purpose. By intrigues with
women, their paid stool-pigeons, they seek to com-
promise the Chief Magistrate of the city, our prose-
cuting officer, a number of judges, and prominent
municipal officials. Their names appear in the letters
now in my possession, copies of which I have had pre-
pared for use in the complete statement I am prepar-
ing for publication.'

" The Superintendent paused for breath and then
went to work again on his ministerial foe :

" ' These letters,' said he, ' will show the instruc-
tions left by Parkhurst when he went abroad — in-
structions left to be carried out by his co-workers
during his absence in Europe. They are written for
the most part by the mother of the woman whose di-
vorce suit caused all the trouble, and detail the in-
trigues of the band up to within a few days of the
present time.

" ' No, no,' hastily replied the Superintendent in re-
sponse to a request for the woman's name, 'I'll not
tell you. Parkhurst can. Ask him. Her daughter
secured the divorce about nine months ago, and the
mother — Parkhurst's most scheming assistant and
personal friend — is away up socially, I can tell you.

" ' Every letter is to a person with whom an inter-
view was had. In these interviews public men were
named, as I am prepared to prove, as victims for some
compromising intrigue to be worked by a woman.'

" Closing the rolling top of his desk with a bang, the

OUR FKillT Wrril TAMMANY 169

SupcrintcndcMit rose from his chair with the abrupt
announcement :

" ' There, gentlemen, that is all for to-night. Ask
all the questions you care to, but expect no further in-
formation until I am ready to make public the com-
plete statement.'

" The questions were plied ttiick and fast upon the
doughty 'Chief,' who coolly slipped into his overcoat
and stepped to the door with a pleasant * Good-night.'
Not a name would he give or an additional particular,
but as his hand touched the door-knob he turned on
his questioners.

" ' Well, boys,' said he, * I will tell you one thing
more to show the contemptible character of this man
Parkhurst. After the arrest of Hattie Adams, and
while her trial was pending, Parkhurst asked this let-
ter-writing mother of a divorced daughter to get him
some of the most abominable French pictures that
are fugitive in this market. His friend and co-laborer
readily consented, and with another woman secured
the beastly prints and took them in great glee to her
pastor. Parkhurst's object in securing them was to
offer them as pictorial evidence of the scenes he had
witnessed in the Adams house.

"'When, however, his faithful parishioner delivered
them, the wily Doctor hesitated.

"'Suppose,' said he, 'that some inquisitive juror
asks me how the pictures came in my possession ? That
would be embarrassing. To obviate anything of that

\yo OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

kind, please take the prints away with you and send
them to me by mail in an envelope. Purely anony-
mous, see ? Then, ladies, I can conscientiously swear
that they were sent to me by some one entirely un-
known.'

" ' It was done. Now, that gives you an idea of
Parkhurst's high character.' "

I submitted my reply to the reporters the same
evening, which was as follows :

" There came to my notice this morning a state-
ment purporting to have emanated from Superintend-
ent Byrnes touching the animus and method of the
work in which I have been engaged during the past
ten months. The statement, presumably authentic,
is an attempt on his part to extricate himself from an
awkward position by trying to put me in another
awkward position of a similar character. He is try-
ing to blacken me as a means of whitewashing himself
and his Department.

" Now, for the sake of argument, I am going, for
the instant, to plead guilty to his entire indictment,
I am going to assume that my motives have been vil-
lainous from the start ; that, as he intimates, I have
been actuated now for almost a year by a sheer spirit
of revenge ; that something transpiring in a certain
'divorce case' so embittered me that I have been
spending all these months in the attempt to square
myself with the Department.

''Well, supposing all that is true, what of it ? How

OUR I'IGIIT WITH TAMMANY 171

does Ihat help Air. Byrnes any ? Docs that fact close
up any of the gambUng-houses that he is allowing to
run? Suppose I have been dealing in 'French pict-
ures' and that I had all my pockets full of them
wlien I went into the court-room on a special occa-
sion, what of it ? Does that fact suppress any of the
vile dens of infamy in this city which exist because
Mr.- Byrnes and his Department are viciously neglect-
ful of their duty ?

" Supposing I have availed of members of my con-
gregation, availed of all of them, and put them upon
the track of city officials, set them studying up the
unwholesome record of any who are to-day in posi-
tions of municipal authority, and arranged with ail
my elders, deacons, and deaconesses to discover the
facts as to the domestic life of the Police Commission-
ers, police magistrates, and police captains, what of it?
How does that help Mr. Byrnes ? In what way does
the fact of such an arrangement operate to neutralize
that other fact of the recognized existence in this city
of institutions for the practice of unnatural vices ?

" Mr. Byrnes is trying to shift the issue from his
shoulders to mine. He is in a hard place and he is
tired ! He thinks that by showing the community
what I am doing he will make the community forget
what he isn't doing. It is shrewdly designed, but too
transparent to prove a success.

"To touch now two or three specific points in Mr.
Byrnes's letter. A picture was in my pocket on the

172 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

morning of the Andrea trial which I was planning to
show the jury in case it seemed that it should be more
effective than oral description. When the time came I
judged that oral evidence would do the work best and
the picture was withheld.

" As to availing myself of detectives to shadow some
of our city officials during the summer while I was
away, that was done, and well done. It was done in
the e.xercise of a distinct right which I have, not as
President of the Society for the Prevention of Crime
simply, but in the right which I have as a citizen.
We have gone quite too long without watching our
city officials, and that is part of the difficulties we are
suffering under to-day. If the exigency arrives again,
I shall put detectives on the track of the officials again,
and if I think circumstances are such as require it I
shall put a detective on Mr. Byrnes. If he is doing
right it won't hurt him. If he isn't doing right he
ought not to object if it does hurt him. Mr. Byrnes is
one of our municipal servants. I am helping to pay
his salary.

" His opposition to having our public officials watched
has a bad look. I have been shadowed off and on for
the last nine months.

*' Touching the matter of the ' divorce case ' and its
relations to the work of my Society during the past
year, Mr. Byrnes says, 'His attack originated in a di-
vorce case about nine months ago.' That statement
is totally and unredeemably false to the last dot. It

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 1 73

was not even the occasion of my attack. It was not
even an incident of my attack. It had nothing to do
with it in any way, shape, or manner. Mr. Byrnes
continues: 'Dr. Parkhurst was interested in the case.
They wanted a police officer to testify to certain facts
which he could not conscientiously swear to and he re-
fused. Dr. Parkhurst showed his anger at that time.'
I have not the slightest recollection of any such event,
and so far from the refusal of a policeman to perjure
himself exciting my anger, it would only have e.xcited
in me devout thanksgiving.

"Mr. Byrnes says, 'I do not believe Dr. Parkhurst
is sincere in his talk.' I am not going to attempt to
prove my sincerity. I know what the public sentiment
is on that point. There are many people in the com-
munity who question the wisdom of my methods, but
I dare to say that the community does not question
my sincerity. Mr. Byrnes knows that I am sincere,
and if he stands in any attitude of enmity toward me
that is the reason of it.

"There remains one charge in Mr. Byrnes's indict-
ment that I cannot dismiss cpiite so summarily. He
says that I ' have continued to make accusations with-
out evidence.' The colossal impudence of that accu-
sation is well-nigh paralyzing. Permit me to address
half a dozen sentences to the Superintendent directly :
Mr. Byrnes, are you familiar with the terms of Section
282 of the Act of Consolidation ? Are you knowing to
the fact that that section makes it obligatory upon you

174 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

and your Department to make yourselves acquainted
with all places in this city where gambling is being
carried on and disorderly houses maintained, and ' to
repress and restrain all unlawful or disorderly conduct
or practices therein, to enforce and prevent the viola-
tion of all laws and ordinances in force in said city?'

" Now, Mr. Byrnes, what have I and my Society
been doing all these ten months from the time when
I presented those affidavits fromx the pulpit of my
church, but piling up before the community the proofs
of the persistent neglect of your Department to dis-
charge the duties the above section makes obligatory
upon you ? What is the meaning of the existence of
such a Society as that for the Prevention of Crime
or for the Suppression of Vice if it is not that the
police fail just at the point where their services
ought to be rendered ?

" Every disorderly house that we have pulled, and
that you ought to have pulled, every gambling-house
that we have frightened into closing its doors, and
whose doors, sir, you yourself were the proper person
to have closed, is a standing indictment against you
and against the integrity and efficiency of the police
service.

" I have seen it stated within a few days that you
have said that Dr. Parkhurst has never been to see
you to get your help ; that you were in a condition to
render me a good deal of service, but that I have
never sought your assistance. Sought your assistance !

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 1 75

Why, Mr, Byrnes, do you not know that it is the crim-
inal neglect of your Department which is the one thing
we are fighting ? You can help us to close brothels,
no doubt, but that is not what we are trying to do.
We are trying to make it so hot for you that you will
close them yourself. We are not trying to suppress
gambling, nor trying to suppress the social evil. We
are trying to suppress your own criminal neglect of
the duties which the above-quoted section devolves
upon you and upon every member of your depart-
ment.

" Permit me, Mr. Byrnes, to bid you remember that
the presentment of the March Grand Jury of 1892
still hangs over your department very much in the
nature of an indictment. Don't attempt, sir, to trans-
fer the burden of the situation from your shoulders to
mine. I make no claim to superior merit. However
many vices I may have, conceit is not one of them,
but I do say that I am standing with all my might, and
the might of my Society, for the honest execution of
wholesome laws in this city, and, strong in that con-
sciousness and fresh from the reading of pitiful com-
plaints, this whole island over, of fathers, mothers, and
sisters, who are pouring in upon me their appeals for
protection against the blatant iniquity that prevails in
our streets, it makes my blood boil, sir, to see you
bringing to bear upon me, for the purposes of dis-
credit, that machinery of your department which, as a
man and an officer, it is your prerogative as well as

176 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

your obligation to make effective to the aid of the
tempted and the relief of the distressed.

" The issue between us now is definite, and yet the
issue is not between you and me. It is between two
classes in the community, of which you and I happen
just now to be the representatives. It is an issue be-
tween criminal rule on the one side and honest rule on
the other. It is a battle between purity and lechery.
It is a fight between true citizens who pay honest
money for the administration of municipal government,
and the criminals in and out of office to whom govern-
ment means nothing but opportunity to feed and fat-
ten on the common treasury and the general life. It
is well now that lines have been sharply drawn. It
simplifies the struggle and Vv-ill hasten the issue."

The community understands now, as it did not then,
the unspeakable greediness and almost unmentionable
vileness of which Mr. Byrnes was the executive head.
He was acquainted with the character of the police
force at that time, or he was not acquainted with it. If
he was not acquainted with it he stands thereby con-
victed of base negligence or of colossal incompetence.
If he was acquainted with it, his assault upon our ef-
forts to improve the force was sneaking, vicious and
malignant.

CHAPTER XV

FIRST ATTACK ON DEVERY

Detective Gardner had been convicted early in
February. It was a hard blow for us, but we succeeded
in continuing cheerful. Our work for some months
was conducted with considerable quietness. Byrnes
doubtless imagined that his two blows dealt in quick
succession had confused our purposes and paralyzed
our hopes. We made almost no overt movement that
would tend to excite his suspicion that anything of an
aggressive nature was being contemplated by us. We
worked, however, industriously but on the quiet.

Our experiences of twelve months (for (lardnerwas
convicted just a year after the delivery of my first ser-
mon), had given us a fairly clear understanding of the
field and of the temper of our enemy. We never for
one moment entertained the thought of abandoning
the enterprise or of compromising with them. Several
overtures were made us through intermediaries, look-
ing to a cessation of hostilities and to an alliance with
the police, all of which were promptly and unequivo-
cally declined and resented ; and it may as well be
said at this point that whatever contribution the

12

178 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

Society for the Prevention of Crime made to the recent
overthrow of Tammany Hall, it made by virtue of its
refusal to stand toward Byrnes or any of his superi-
ors or subordinates in any other relation than that
of sworn enemy.

In those quiet weeks and months, however, there
was being a good deal done. We gathered together a
force of detectives of whose work the Society may well
be proud. In only one instance, I believe, did we err
in our man, and even in his case the treason to our in-
terests was distinctly due to his having been tampered
with at Police Headquarters, as is proved by his
affidavit, which we hold in our possession. If these
lines should happen to fall under the eye of Inspector
Williams, his cultivated perspicacity will doubtless be
able to penetrate our allusion. The public will find,
in this reference, another indication of the difficulties
against which we had to contend, and of the concealed
pit-falls into which we were constantly liable to tumble.

With our office thus interiorly strengthened and
compacted, we laid out a scheme of long, detailed, and
careful work. We were in no haste. Our principle
was that what was worth working for at all was worth
working for a good while. The Executive Committee
agreed that our next step must be to make a solid case
of malfeasance against a police captain. Before fix-
ing upon a candidate for our Society's attention, we
devoted a considerable period of investigation to the
condition and workings of a number of precincts that

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 179

had been reported to us as exceptionally bad, and fixed
finally upon the Eleventh, Captain Devery's, as being
the one where there was not only as much tolerated,
not to say protected crime, as in any other, but as be-
ing the precinct where, as it appeared to our detectives,
gambling and disorderly resorts were being conducted
with a more shameless and blatant openness than in
any other. Besides this, the Eleventh Precinct has
the reputation of being one whose market value was
quite as high as that of any other, which was under-
stood to mean that Captain Devery had to pay roundly
for his precinct, and that his criminal business had
consequently to be stimulated so that it could pay
roundly for his reimbursement.

For a number of weeks, then, our work was limited
to the Eleventh Precinct, which is situated on the East
and lower side of the town, and bounded by Houston,
Clinton, Rivington, Norfolk, and Division Streets, and
the Bowery.

We had kept careful record of all letters of com-
plaint written us respecting criminal resorts in that
and other precincts, and had received, besides, occa-
sional assistance from residents in that quarter of the
town, whose indignation overcame their fears, and
made them willing to run the risk of allying themselves
with our cause. As a rule, however, the reign of ter-
ror was so ruthlessly maintained by the police, that
until recently little information has reached us except
of an anonymous kind.

l80 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

Starting out with the lines thus furnished, our de-
tectives made themselves, in a detailed way, master of
a portion of Devery's precinct, and before the close of
May had secured sixty-four solid cases — considered
such by the legal members of the executive com-
mittee— against gambling and disorderly houses. We
then prepared letters of complaint addressed to the
Mayor, the Police Commissioners, the Superintendent
of Police, and the public, respectively; submitting
copies of the same to the press for general publica-
tion. These letters were prepared before my depart-
ure for Europe in June of that year, but, for reasons
not requiring to be stated here, were not transmitted
to the city ofificials nor given to the press till the
loth of August following.

The statement addressed to the general public was
as follows : —

" It has been stated by some, with whom the wish
is, doubtless, parent to the thought, that the Society
for the Prevention of Crime is an extinct institution.
The present opportunity is availed of to say that at
no time in its history has the Society been so full of
purpose, or so thoroughly organized for work as at this
date. Those most interested in its Avelfare are not
men that are easily discouraged, or that are swerved
from the line of their intention by any devices that
may be played off upon them, or by any obstructions
that may be placed upon the track by those against
whom their efforts are directed.

OUR FinilT WITH TAMMAW l8l

" Notliing has occurred during the year to invahdate
the statement of the March (Irand Jury of 1892, to the
effect that the Police Department is either incom-
petent or criminal, and that it is not incompetent.
Not only has that charge not been invalidated this
year, but much has occurred to corroliorate it. Hav-
ing been so situated as to know what was being done
by ofificials who are paid once by the city for enforc-
ing the laws, and paid again, unless all signs fail, by
gamblers, strumpets, and violators of excise, for not
enforcing them, it has been exceedingly interesting
to observe how steadily the enforcement of law has
fluctuated witli the fluctuations of interest shown
in the matter by community. Certain police captains
will understand perfectly what is meant when I say
that any movement on the part of well-intentioned
citizens, or any suspicion of such a movement, is to
the Police Department certain signal that it is time to
make another "raid." To those who have been so
circumstanced as to know what has been going on out
of sight, the systematic and pretty successful efforts
that have been made during the last twelve months
to pull wool over the eyes of the unsophisticated, have
been so transparent in their farcical character as to
convert the demeanor of the Department into a sort
of chronic comedy. For a number of months now, so
far as any overt action on the part of the community
or of our Society is concerned, the police have been
left to their own gains and devices, and it has been

1 82 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

a long time since crime, in certain portions of the
city, has been so unbridled as it is to-day.

'* Our investigation as a society has been for some
weeks devoted, to a considerable extent, to the
Eleventh Precinct. This is the district in which the
dignity of the law is supposed to be maintained, and
crime made perilous, by the salaried ministration of
Captain William S. Devery. The statutes determining
his obligations are exphcit. And it is impossible to
suppose that he does not appreciate within certain
limits the serious responsibility of his position ; but if
he has any such appreciation it is equally impossible
to understand how he can traverse the streets of his
diocese with an erect head, or with any remaining
traces of self-respect, knowing, as he is bound to
know, and as he is criminally negligent if he does not
know, the reeking mass of moral filth which he is
maintaining there. I know the larger number of dis-
orderly houses that are located there, and their street
addresses, and the number of vile women that ply
their trade in each, and the confidence that these
women have that they will not be interfered with by
the Captain or his subordinates or superiors, if they
continue to maintain their own part of the contract
with the powers that be.

The same also I am able to state in reference to the
gambling evil in the same precinct. From the street
I have looked directly into some of Devery 's gambling
saloons, that were in full blast and running with wide

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 183

open doors. Even tlie paraphernalia of the art were
in full and easy view, with no more attempt at con-
cealment than if it had been a drygoods store or a
butcher shop. That being the case, if Devery says he
is trying to clean out gambling from his precinct, he
lies. Police captains of that complexion are nothing
more nor less than crime-breeders. How long is it
going to be before the earnest integrity of this city
will take hold of this organized system of damnation
and root it out ? Twenty churches cannot unmake
crime as fast as official complicity in the Eleventh
Precinct is making it.

" Only let it be said, by the way, that Davery could
not maintain this protective attitude toward crime
were it not for the backing which he gets from the
superior authorities to which he is amenable. He is
simply one factor in a colossal organization of crime
by which our unhappy city is despotized. The pre-
cinct of which we have been speaking swarms with
boys and girls, and is a superb fitting school for adult
depravity ; it is a sort of devil's seminary, in which
the vicious negligence of Devery constitutes him a
kind of first trustee. I have received a score of let-
ters from that quarter of the town, written by parents
who have implored me to do something that should
make the police close up those houses in order that
their children on their way to and from school, might
not be polluted by the filthy sights that abound in
some portions of Devery's precinct. ' We have been

1 84 OUR FIGHT wrnr tammanv

to the captain,' they sa}', ' but that never does any
good.'

" Devery need not be moved to expressions of re-
sentment or profanity by these accusations. We have
got the facts down in black and white, and reduced
to affidavits. Little children toddle around the doors
and windows from which free advertisements of lust
are constantly and boldly made. There is a long row
of such houses in Bayard Street, for instance, standing
side by side. Devery knows where they are. Byrnes
has them on his list at headquarters. It was only last
week that I passed them and was solicited from every
one of them. Parents all through such portions of
the town are crying out against the foul tyranny that
binds their children to the discipline of this loathsome
tuition. Mr. Byrnes has daughters. What sort of
creatures might we have expected them to become if
they had been obliged to grow up within the foul en-
vironment that the head of our Police Department
makes a necessary part of the training of the children
that grow up in Eldridge, Forsyth, Delancey, and East
Houston Streets ?

" And what shall we say of the intimation if the
March Grand Jury of 1892 is valid, that all this official
nursing of gambling and licentiousness is for the sake
of the money they can make out of it for themselves
and Tammany ? Honesty converted into dollars ;
female virtue into corner lots ; and the most splendid
city in our country governed by a pack of freebooters

OUR ii(;nr wrni tammany 185

who pillage the city of the best that makes it worth
o-overning — that is why it is difficult to break up these
evils. They are not primarily due to the viciousuess
of the Police Department ; that Department is simply
one of the many tentacles by means of which, what-
ever lucrative commodity is afloat in the air, is drawn
into Tammany's capacious maw. Gambling and li-
centiousness are among the springs of her supply,
because gambling and licentiousness are willing to
pay for being protected.

" Saloon-keepers pay for not being disturbed on
Sundays. Some arrests have to be made in order to
keep up appearances. The rule is that there shall be
sixty-seven a Sunday. The variation from that figure,
up or down, has been slight since last February. A
barkeeper said a few days ago : ' It will be my turn to
be arrested pretty soon. I was to have been hauled
up this week, but the boss arranged to have it put off
for a couple of months.' Perhaps that makes it easy
to understand why it was that Tammany last winter
killed the bill that proposed to give saloon-keepers a
wet Sunday. It would have cut off just so much op-
portunity for blackmail. It is for that reason that we
need not fear that Tammany will pass a law for
licensing gambling or prostitution.

" There is no end to this matter. People, however,
are getting their eyes open. Tammany does not e.K-
pect that her opportunities are going to be prolonged
indefinitely. When the explosion comes, it will be

l86 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

found that those who have been most deeply impli-
cated have made arrangements by which they can con-
veniently run to cover. If citizens would tell all they
know, short work could be made of it. Their hearts
are brave, but their property interests are cowardly.

" There are parts of the town where young rowdies
terrorize the street. The policeman says to you : * I
can't catch them.' It is an impressive sight to see
policemen march on Decoration Day ; but, after all,
the most impressive thing they can do is to make
crime dangerous. I can tell you where you can stand
at certain hours of the day and see trained boys empty
the pockets of the unwary. You need not go to
Dickens in order to find a Fagin. Crime is not con-
sidered crime in this town unless it declines to be
assessed, and the consequence is that young criminals
are growing up among us, rank and thrifty. We have
not studied this thing for the last eighteen months for
nothing. Still we have no fear for the future. How
long it will take to get there depends upon how many
men there are that are willing to invest themselves
and their names in the work of rendering present con-
ditions disreputable, and therefore impossible."

The letters addressed to the Mayor, Superintendent
Byrnes, and to Captain Devery were of a formal char-
acter, quoting from the Consolidation Act the duties
and the powers of the police force, and specifying by
street and number the resorts complained of in the
Eleventh Precinct.

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 18/

The letter to President Martin of the Board of
Police Commissioners was as follows :

" The Board of Commissioners constitutes the de-
termining power of the Police Department. It is upon
you and your colleagues, therefore, that in the last
analysis responsibility for the non-enforcement of law
must always be conceded to rest. In view of this
factj we hereby transmit to you copies of communica-
tions which have to-day been sent to Thomas F. Gil-
roy, Mayor ; to Thomas Byrnes, Superintendent of the
force ; and to William S. Devery, Captain of the
Eleventh Precinct, calling upon you to exercise your
proper authority in the matter, and to exert upon the
force the pressure needed to secure the reasonable
action asked for by the undersigned.

" The obligations of the Department are authorita-
tively and explicitly stated. While no one is so san-
guine as to expect the complete rooting out of the
gambling or of the social evil, we none of us have a
right to expect that these evils will be played with by
the Department. The law makes it your distinct
duty to utilize the Department's power in repressing
and preventing crime. No option is accorded you as
to what classes of crime you shall repress and what
not. The Department is executive, not legislative.
The propriety of existing statutes relative to gam-
bling and disorderly houses you may, as men, have an
opinion upon, but not as commissioners. Your func-
tion is to act, not to philosophize. In the matter of

lS8 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

action, it becomes immediately evident from the list
of gambling-houses and houses of ill-fame herewith
furnished that either you or your subordinates have
been delinquent.

** The opinion has become current that such inaction
is due to mercenary motives. The presentment of
the March Grand Jury of 1892 indicated as much.
However that may be, the suspicion that such charge
is a valid one will not be eradicated from the pub-
lic mind till the obligations devolving upon the
Department are met with earnestness and thorough-
ness, of which the accompanying voluminous schedule
gives not the slightest intimation. We expect, there-
fore, that you will give this matter your early atten-
tion, and that you will apply the force requisite to
the closing of the places of which you are hereby
notified."

CHAPTER XVI

DENUNCIATION AND WHITEWASH

Had we not understood quite well the animus of
our police officers and commissioners, we should have
been surprised at the evident irritation produced by
our letters complaining of the condition of things in
the Eleventh Precinct. If they had had a tithe of the
anxiety to enforce the law which they professed to
have, Martin, Sheehan, McClave, Byrnes, Williams, and
Devery would have come up to our office on Twenty-
second Street, to thank us with mellow and overflowing
hearts for the valuable and detailed bits of criminal in-
formation which we had gratuitously furnished them.
Notwithstanding all the efforts we have made during
the past three years to help the Police Department earn
its annual salary of $5,000,000, I do not recall a single
instance in which an inexpensive return of thanks has
been made to us by a police officer, or a cheap resolu-
tion of confidence in us voted by the Board of Police
Commissioners.

The Commissioners met on the 17th of August, and
Major Kipp was about to read our communication, when
Mr. McClave inquired whether anything was to be

190 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

gained by reading a letter that had appeared in the
newspapers. " Certainly not," said President Martin.
"I think," rejoined McClave, "that it is not worth
while to waste time in reading it ; I move that it be
referred to the Superintendent for consideration and
report."

The letter so referred was reported upon at the
Board meeting one week later, at which time the of-
ficial statement was received, accepted, and filed ; but
although the Superintendent, the Inspector, Captain,
and a number of patrolmen in citizen's clothes had
been scouring the Eleventh Precinct, each with a cer-
tified copy of our letters in his hand, nothing criminal
had been observed, no iniquitous suggestion that put
even a hypothetical stain on the monotonous white-
ness of that immaculate district. If they had had the
good sense to own up to somct/iing, even if it were
nothing worse than the detection of a couple of rag-
amuffins pitching pennies, there would have been a
semblance of probability about their report that would
have relieved it ; but the idea that the high function-
aries of the New York Police were unable to get upon
the trace or even presentiments of depravity in De-
lancey, Chrystie, and Bayard Streets, was too much
even for the more gullible element of our community,
and the elaborate whitewashing which the officials put
upon each other was publicly accepted with mingled
amusement and contempt.

In the meantime our office kept watch on that little

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY I9I

spot of municipal paradise, and knew how soon after
our letters were issued Devery's crime factories closed
up, and how soon they resumed again. Our men, how-
ever, for the following month, devoted the larger part
of their energies to another field, and Devery, Will-
iams, and Byrnes were allowed space for meditation
and opportunit}' to repent and to bring forth fruits
meet, for repentance.

Having waited what seemed to us ample time for
the development of a penitential mood, and discover-
ing in that portion of town no symptoms of a change
of spirit or of purpose, we brought our men again upon
the same ground and, taking our former list again, made
solid cases against most of the same houses de novo,
forty-five in number. When this work had been com-
pleted in a way fully to satisfy the requirements of the
legal members of our Executive Committee (Messrs.
Frank Moss and T. D. Kenneson), another series of
complaints was prepared and addressed to the same
parties as before. This was on the 12th of October.
The communication, transmitted to J. J. Martin, Presi-
dent of the Board of Police Commissioners, was as
follows :

"Whatever maybe the incapacity or duplicity of the
agencies through which you aim to secure the enforce-
ment of law, you will be obliged to concede that the
responsibility for the condition of this city, in that
particular, still rests with yourself and your colleagues;
and at the expense of seeming to you repetitious, we

192 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

take this means of informing you that the police pre-
cinct which you have placed in charge of Captain
William S. Devery, and of which, for considerations
doubtless appreciated by yourself, you are still retain-
ing him in charge, is being administered by him in the
same manner of incompetency, or of criminality— ac-
cording as you may prefer to designate it — as that to
which your attention was recently called by a letter
emanating from the Society for the Prevention of
Crime, and received by you August loth. In our cor-
respondence at that time we cited the statutes bearing
upon the case, and we are pleased to see that neither
the Mayor, your own Board, the Acting Superinten-
dent of Police, the Inspecter nor the Captain of the
Eleventh Precinct has taken any exception to the in-
terpretation which those statutes were recognized by
us as designed to carry. It appears, therefore, that
the law in the premises we all interpret alike. The
obligation of your department to proceed without
dallying or subterfuge to the inspection of all sus-
pected places, and to the repression and restraint of
all unlawful places, is mutually conceded. There be-
ing no dispute, then, in the matter of law, the question
resolves itself exclusively into one of fact.

" Here also we are clear in the ground which we
occupy, and do not propose to be ' bluffed ' by any
system of mutual exculpation or raw denial with which
the agencies of your Department rush to one another's
relief. After the easy disposition which was made of
our complaint received in August, we deemed it due
to yourselves to afford ample time for the adoption of
a policy more consistent with the responsibilities de-
volving upon you, but have diligently employed the

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 1 93

interim in studying the habits of your Department with
particular reference to the precinct in question. The
spasm of zeal exhibited by your subordinates on the
appearance of our complaint has never, for a day, de-
luded the gamblers or the bawdy-house keepers of the
precinct into the supposition that their business was
imperilled. However you may see fit to explain it,
the criminals in that precinct expect more from the
jirotection of your Department than fear from its inflic-
tions. As already said, we have kept in touch with
the precinct, and we desire to communicate to you
herewith the results of our latest canvass, completed
on October 4th. We knew in August, as we know now,
that the reports made to your Board by Acting Super-
intendent Conlin, by Inspector Alexander S. Williams,
and by Captain William S. Devery, whether by inten-
tion or otherwise, are misrepresentations of the truth
in essential particulars ; and however stinted may
have been the hospitality which you evinced toward
our complaint as then presented, you will now cer-
tainly, unless bound to others by ties as degrading as
they would be unlawful, give to our renewed com-
plaint a heed more in keeping with the dignity of your
position and the gravity of the accusation.

" In a communication received by you in August last,
the undersigned brought to your attention some fifty
places at which gambling was being carried on, or
which were being maintained as disorderly houses.
Your response to the same, as made to your superior
ofificer, has been forwarded to us. We know very well
the ground on which we stand, and do not reopen the
correspondence for any purpose of debating the mat-
ter with you. We have adopted our own scheme of
13

194 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

action, and the notice which we now serve upon you
is the second step in the pursuance of that policy, so
far as it concerns yourself. We submit, herewith, for
your consideration and action, a list of disorderly
houses which are now doing business in your pre-
cinct. You will perceive that this list is substan-
tially identical with that furnished you in August.
In your report to Inspector Williams you claim to
have visited these houses. W^hether you visited them
or not, they were in operation prior to that date ; they
were in operation subsequent to that date, and they
were all of them in full blast on October 4th.

"Consistently with the obligations imposed upon you
by the statutes and ' Rules and Regulations ' under
which you are acting, and which were quoted to you in
our previous communication, we demand of you that
you address yourself to this business without sub-
terfuge or evasion, and that you proceed to close and
to keep closed the places used for lewd or obscene
purposes."

From our other communications we select only
that addressed to Captain ^^'illiam S. Devery, of the
Eleventh Precinct, as follows :

"We submit, then, herewith a list of disorderly houses
which are at present flourishing under the administra-
tion of Captain Devery — our object in collecting this
evidence being to show, not what kind of women keep
the houses, but what kind of a captain keeps the pre-
cinct. Both now and heretofore our contention has
not been with the disorderly houses per se, but with
Captain Devery, and men like him, who, having ac-

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 1 95

cepted positions of grave authority, are failing, either
from incompetence or from criminal complicity, to
meet their obligations.

"By comparing the accompanying list with the one
furnished you in August, you will perceive their sub-
stantial identity. The houses were running before
the time when your subordinates claim to have visited
them ; have been running since, and were in full
operation on the evening of October 4th ; and not only
in operation, but conducting their business in a man-
ner which made profligacy an open fact, the whole
region pestilential, and youthful escape from the foul
contagion a physical and moral impossibility. Any
claim that Captain Devery is so disguising the social
evil as to make vice difficult in his precinct is a lie
from bottom up ; and unless you compel him to the
decent discharge of his functions in that particular,
your own souls will have the burden to carry of the
physical and moral pollution which free and exhibitive
lust are bound to entail."

We had two or three objects in thus repeating our
blows. In the first place, more soreness will be in-
duced by striking one spot twice than in striking two
spots once. Besides that, we wanted to convince
Martin and Sheehan that we were not amenable to
any game of bluff. There was a constant expectation
on their part that we were going to be tired pretty
soon, and there was great satisfaction afforded to us
in deferring their hopes. There was also another pur-
pose in this second assault upon Devery which will
disclose itself as the story proceeds.

196 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

It was with a kind of earnest curiosity that we
awaited the effect of our second discharge. We had
the satisfaction of knowing that whatever the Com-
missioners and their subordinates did, they were cer-
tain to be put in an awkward predicament. They
would be obliged either to incriminate themselves by
retreating from the position they had taken in August,
or they would be obliged to stultify themselves by
continuing to maintain that position. But a criminal
will always prefer to make himself foolish rather than
to confess himself wicked, and our complaint was re-
ceived by the Board with even chillier hospitality than
had been accorded to it in August. The matter came
up before the Police Board on October 20th. Super-
intendent Byrnes reported that he had instructed
Inspector Williams and Captain Devery to make a
thorough investigation into the charges preferred in
our last communication, and, if they found the law
violated, to arrest the offender and report the result.
In addition, the Superintendent detailed two Central
Office detectives, furnishing them with lists of the
places complained of, and directing them to visit sep-
arately, and unknown to each other, the specified
places at irregular hours of the day or night, and to
report. In his report to the Superintendent, Inspec-
tor Williams says :

" I have given the communication from Dr. Park-
hurst and its charges of alleged open immorality in
the Eleventh Precinct, and of intimated criminality on

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY I97

the part of Captain Devery in permitting such places
to exist, the closest possible attention and investiga-
tion. I fnid that these charges are without foundation.
I will further state that the report made by Captain
Devery last August on a similar communication was
true, and that there was positively no misrepresenta-
tion of any kind in either of these reports. As to
gambling in the Eleventh Precinct, there is none ; and
any person who says that gambling is carried on there
tells a deliberate and malicious falsehood.

" The alleged disorderly houses in the precinct were
visited by officers in citizen's clothes, under my direc-
tion, previous to October 4th, and since October 4th,
up to date, and no violation of the law was found. On
receipt of this communication I detailed officers from
outside the Eleventh Precinct to visit at irregular
hours these houses, and in no case could they gain ad-
mittance, or procure evidence that would tend to
show that the law was in any way violated.

" I have also frequently visited the streets and
passed the houses mentioned in the communication,
and have failed to find any of the ' open profiigacy ' or
' foul contagion ' from which the writers of this com-
munication would make it appear that ' youthful es-
cape ' was a ' moral impossibility,' and any person who
would make such a statement in the face of the actual
condition of the precinct has no regard for truth or his
moral obligations.

" In conclusion, it is admitted by the signers of the
communication that it is a personal attack on Captain
Devery and not against disorderly houses. And the
false accusations therein contained would never have
been made, had not Captain Devery caused the arrest

198 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

and conviction of the Superintendent of the Society
for the Suppression of Vice, for blackmail."

After the above reports had been read by Chief
Clerk Kipp, they were accepted and filed. At this
point Commissioner MacLean moved that the Inspec-
tor and Captain mentioned in our communication be
given permission to bring action for libel against the
signers of the paper. Commissioners Martin, McClave,
and Sheehan declined to step into the hole which Mr.
MacLean, with characteristic courtesy, had dug for
them. Mr. Sheehan, who keeps in stock a good deal
of righteous indignation of a certain sort, and who felt
himself severely rubbed at the spot where that com-
modity is deposited, followed the defeat of Mr. Mac-
Lean's pleasant suggestion with the following remarks,
quoted from the report in the JVorid of the day
following :

" Gentlemen," then said Mr. Sheehan, " I believe it
will be conceded that since I have been a member of
this board, I have always been inclined to favor Dr.
Parkhurst in furnishing him and his Society with any
documents or information that we might have which
would be of service to his Society, for the reason that
I thought he was honestly endeavoring to perform
what he considered public duty. I find, however, that
I have been entirely mistaken. Within the past few
days I have read interviews given to the newspapers
by Dr. Parkhurst, in which he says that he wished it to
be distinctly understood that he and his assistants were

OUR I'IGIIT WITH TAMMANY 199

not fighting disorderly houses, saloons, and gambling-
houses, but that they were fighting Tammany Hall.
The public had been led to believe otherwise. The
people supposed that the one object and end of Dr.
Parkhurst and his Society was war on saloons and dis-
orderly houses.

" Has the reverend gentleman's vocation departed,
or is he only coming out now under his true colors ?
It seems to me," concluded the Commissioner, " that
henceforth no attention whatever should be paid by
this Board to any communications from Dr. Parkhurst
or his Society. His harangues shall receive only the
same attention as is given to other Republican stump
speakers who are continually howling for the destruc-
tion of the Democratic party."

The thorough and wicked insincerity of the Com-
missioners will be understood from the following par-
agraph of an interview had with us on the day fol-
lowing :

" Our complaints of August and October made
Byrnes, Williams, and Devery defendants in the case.
They are the parties whose guilt or innocence it was
incumbent upon the Commissioners to demonstrate.
Instead of investigating the matter themselves, the
Commissioners have delegated the duty to the very
defendants whose alleged incompetence or criminality
we insisted on being e.xamined into. They have said
to the accused : ' You may retire, decide what you
think of yourselves and each other, and bring in a
verdict.' The verdict came in yesterday, whereupon
the astute Commissioners turn to the waiting public

200 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

and say, ' Non proven.' Whether that means that the
Commissioners believe their subordinates to be so in-
nocent that it would be an insult to them to have
them investigated, or so criminal that it would be
awkward for the Commissioners themselves, we have
no present opinion that we care to express. But con-
sidered as a purely judicial process, it is a mixture of
farce and tragedy that touches some of us at the spot
where we keep our unutterable loathing. If we sup-
posed that the object of the Commissioners was not
to clear the culprits but to get at the bottom facts,
we think we could put them in reach of a few such
facts. They need our help a great deal more than
we need theirs. Sheehan, with an inflection that is
tenderly tinged with pathos, is reported as saying at
the meeting yesterday that we had not shown a dis-
position to avail of his support. We don't want his
support. We are not sailing in his boat. If he wants
to sail in our boat a little while, perhaps we might con-
clude to take him aboard and cruise around with him,
touching at occasional points within the jurisdiction
of his Department, where he could pick up a pertinent
fact or two, that would enable him and his colleagues
to bring in a verdict of their own, and not simply a ver-
dict that had been put in their mouths by their sus-
pected subordinates." At the very moment when the
whitewashing process was going on at the Police
Commissioners' room yesterday afternoon, an arrest
was made at a house in Forsyth Street, named in Cap-
tain Devery's report as having been closed October 4th,
but when visited by our detectives on Tuesday and
Thursday of this week was found to be running as
usual. We obtained a warrant from Justice Voorhis,

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 201

and the keeper of the house spent the night in the
Essex Market jail."

All these events were doing their steady work in
the opinions and feelings of the community. iVe
were being defeated at every turn, but the cause we
represented was winning. It was becoming increas-
ingly evident to men with an intelligence and a con-
science, that unrighteousness was so pervasively
wrought into the structure of our city government,
that honesty and decency had no rights which it felt
itself bound to respect, and that evil was so deeply
intrenched that nothing short of a revolution would
avail to shatter and subvert it. Thus, while the move-
ment of our cause was outwardly retrograde, it was
substantially onward and forward.

CHAPTER XVII

THE BROOME STREET MOB

It is important that there be a clear understanding
of the point at which we are now arrived. We had
ample proof of the existence of more than sixty gam-
bling and disorderly places in the Eleventh Precinct.
We told the Police Department we had such proof, and
they told us we lied, or words to that effect. That
was in August. In October we secured fresh proof
against forty places of the same character in the same
precinct, and for the most part identical with those
complained of in August. We told the department
we had such proof and again they told us we lied,
only this time with a sneer. We were, however, on
a sure trail, and had no intention of being brow-
beaten. With so much accomplished, and accom-
plished to our own satisfaction and to that of the town,
there was only one thing that remained to do next,
and that was to select a certain number of Devery's
pest-holes, that Devery, Williams, Byrnes and the
commissioners had given the public to understand had
no existence outside of our incompetent and vicious
imaginations, gather fresh evidence upon them, and

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 203

take them before the Grand Jury as ground for Dev-
ery's indictment.

This was easily done. Even granting that Byrnes
and his associates had been conscientiously unable to
discover criminal conduct in the resorts we com-
plained of, they could easily have prevented the
continuance of such conduct if they had chosen to.
There was, however, no such effort made on their
part, because there was no such desire. The forty
resorts were soon in the full swing of their criminal
industries again, and we had no difficulty in securing
against them all the evidence required.

We selected four houses from the number of those
that had been specified in both our previous com-
plaints, and made against them cases so strong that
nothing which made pretence to justice or legality
could sufifice to break them.

These cases were tried at the Court of Special Ses-
sions on the 14th of November, before Justices Grady,
Smith, and McMahon.

The judicial lights just specified were not altogether
of such quality as to thrill us with ardent anticipa-
tion, but at any rate we knew our cases were well
made, and besides that, there was one influence oper-
ating that was decidedly in our favor. The Novem-
ber election of '93 had been held the week before, and
there was an exceptional amount of moral ozone in
the air. Brooklyn had just broken its municipal ring,
and the cause of honest government was looking up.

204 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

People were beginning to recover the courage of their
convictions. Decency was coming to mean more.
There was an amount of moral pressure beginning to
exert itself that even Tammany Justices felt them-
selves beholden to reckon with.

We can argue against the propriety of public senti-
ment affecting judicial procedure, but it does affect it
all the same. It will, to a degree, vitiate the findings
of honest judges and jurors, and it will to a degree
rectify the findings of dishonest judges and jurors.
Whatever theory we may hold upon the question ab-
stractly, there was sentiment in the atmosphere, that
14th of November, that had not been there two weeks
before, and it contributed incalculably to the issues
of the day. The testimony of our witnesses was
strong and lucid, and the prosecution was ably con-
ducted by Messrs. Moss and Kenneson of our Execu-
tive Committee. The verdict of guilty was promptly
rendered in each of the four cases, and sentence pro-
nounced.

We have been thus explicit in our recital of this
matter for the reason that the convictions secured
that day constituted a crisis in the history of our
work ; and a crisis, too, that was scarcely appreciated
by the judicial gentlemen who sat upon the Bench.
We had been a year and a half in reaching that point,
and the decisions rendered in our favor by the Court
was the proof upon which was to hang everything
coming after. The simple fact was, that three Tam-

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 205

many Justices had been compelled by the indubitable
evidence which we furnished, to render a verdict that
practically convicted Divver, Martin, Byrnes, and the
Police Commissioners, either of absolute ignorance of
matters with which they ought to have been thoroughly
acquainted, or of secret sympathy with a condition of
things which ought to have excited their official in-
dignation and moral disgust.

Before going on, now, to speak of the use which we
made of the convictions thus secured, it will be neces-
sary to go back ,a couple of weeks and describe the
brutal handling of our detectives by the " Broome
Street Mob," on the afternoon of October 27th, at the
same hour, significantly enough, when the Police Com-
missioners in their office on Mulberry Street, were con-
sidering our last complaint touching the Eleventh Pre-
cinct, and whitewashing the captain (Devery) in whose
precinct the mobbing outrage was committed. The
coincidence might almost be considered as a provi-
dential rap at the humbuggery of the Police Commis-
sioners who did the whitewashing, and at the false tes-
timony of the superior police officials upon which the
finding of the Commissioners was based. The report
of this event which, almost more than any other, has
evidenced the animosity cherished toward us by the
Superintendent of Police, his immediate subordinates
and the thugs who stood in with them, can best be re-
lated in the words of John H. Lemmon, who is a tried
and faithful member of our detective force, and who,

206 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

as the reader will see, was himself personally partici-
pant in the scenes which he describes :

" On Friday afternoon, October 27th, accompanied
by four other detectives of the Society, we appeared
before Justice Voorhis to prosecute three of the women
who it has just been said were tried and convicted
November 14th. It having been noised around the pre-
cinct that these women would be arraigned, numbers of
their friends, including hangers-on, blacklegs, thugs,
Tammany heelers and other friends of the keepers of
disorderly houses in the precinct, made their way to
Essex Market Police Court. Their appearance was
such that the Court Officers drove them from the en-
trance. They, however, lingered about on the street
adjacent to the Court, waiting for us to come out.

" A little after four o'clock, Messrs. Moss and Ken-
neson, of our Executive Committee, left the court-
room, and being unknown to the crowd were not
recognized as being connected with the case. They,
however, did not like the looks of the crowd, and tak-
ing a stand on the opposite side of the street, watched
developments. We had learned of the presence of
the crowd outside, and that their numbers were being
constantly augmented. Mr. Moss returned and told
us that we had better separate, each of us going our
own way. We objected to this, knowing full well that
our safety depended on our remaining together. As
we came out we found fully one hundred and fifty men.

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 207

and they at once closed around us. One who was in
advance of the crowd sprang toward me with a knife
in his hand, which was drawn back ready to strike.
(I have since learned this man's name and address.)
One of our detectives exclaimed * Look out, Lemmon,
he is going to knife you.' I at once jumped away and
faced my assailant, and saw him, knife in hand, being
hustled away by some of his crowd. We walked on,
hoping the crowd w^ould disperse, as none of us was
prepared for a row. But the crowd continued to in-
crease. The mob followed closely upon us, growing
in size, their numbers being added to by loungers and
others from the various saloons and other such places
as we passed along. As they would meet a crowd
they would remark ' We are after the Parkhurst men,
and are going to do them up.' These threats were
heard by a number of responsible parties, including
Messrs. Moss and Kenneson who, not being recognized,
walked along in the crowd without fear of being mo-
lested.

" When we arrived at the corner of Allen Street, we
met a policeman on duty, and one of our men went up
to him and said : ' I call upon you to disperse this
mob, or we shall have a man killed here.' The police-
man laughed at us, and paid no attention to the re-
quest. We paused only for a moment, as by this time
the crowd had grown to fully five hundred people, and
they were pressing us pretty closely. The crowd was
not the usual howling mob, which expends most of its

208 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

energy in wind, but had a decidedly business air about
it.

" When we reached the Bowery, I suggested that
we take a Fourth Avenue car, thinking it possible
the crowd would follow us no farther. One had just
passed and we had to wait. We crossed over the
street, the mob still at our heels, and growing bolder
every minute. A car was coming, and it seemed only
a question of seconds whether we should be assaulted
or not. Just as the car came up we attempted to
board it, but I was cut off by a passing beer- wagon
and separated from the others. I made a dash around
it and jumped on the front of the car. A man leaped
on the other side and struck at me. I dodged the
blow and struck my assailant, which knocked him off
the car. At the same time the crowd surged around
the car, two men grabbing the bridles of the horses
and stopping them.

" In the meantime the other four men were near the
rear of the car, trying to board it. A big, burly-look-
ing ruffian gave one of our men a stinging blow on the
cheek. Others of the mob struck at our men while
boarding the car, but they succeeded in avoiding the
ruffians.

"We finally made our way into the car, in which
there were a number of passengers, who were badly
frightened. Numbers of the mob jumped on the car
at both ends, and tried to force their way inside ; but
our men stood at the doors, and, assisted by the con-

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 209

ductor, who was very roughly handled, kept them
back. Two policemen, who were attracted by the
crowd, rushed to the rescue of the Society's officers,
and pulled their assailants from the car. To the
credit of these two policemen, I want to say they
worked manfully, so far as I could see, and by their
well-directed energy discouraged the rioters. As soon
as the men holding the horses released them, the
driver plied his whip with a will, and we went up the
street at a full run, leaving a crowd of fully fifteen
hundred men, which had collected during the row at
the car.

" In the meantime, I was having a very exciting ex-
perience. The pressure was so great on the front of
the car, that, being separated from my friends, J left it
and boarded a Third Avenue car, when I was again
attacked by some of the mob who had noticed my
movements. I, however, succeeded in again knocking
off my assailant, but things became so warm I had to
make another change, and bolted for a Fourth Avenue
car which happened to be passing, but was followed
by my pursuers. I was once more attacked, but was
fortunate enough to push my assailant off the car, and
immediately left from the other side and made my way
to the Grand Street station of the Elevated road.
Two men followed me and took the same car. When
the train arrived at Twenty-third Street, I turned to
them and threatened to make them trouble if they
attempted to follow me farther. They evidently
14

2IO OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

thought they had had enough, and concluded to give
up further pursuit. I then went to the office of the
Society and reported. Afterward I went to Dr.
Parkhurst's house and informed him of what had
happened."

Exasperating as this mobbing affray in some re-
spects was, it was highly interesting as an object-lesson
of the fact that when we pushed the Superintendent
and Inspector and the Captain beyond a certain point,
the thugs flew to their relief, showing by incontestable
proof that they knew who their friends were. Noth-
ing, perhaps, has occurred in the history of our deal-
ings with the high police officials that has been to
them a more fruitful source of mortification, or that
has made more friends for our cause, especially in the
lower parts of the town. The Superintendent had
plumed himself upon the fact that however much
hidden crime there might be in the city, anybody could
walk the streets, in daylight at least, without fear of
molestation. This event on Broome Street gave the
lie to his brag. We were curious to know what he
would do about it. Our Executive Committee im-
mediately decided that we should ourselves take no
action. We had laid repeated complaints before the
administrative and executive heads of the department
without effect, and concluded that we could fish with
more effect in other waters.

Mr, Byrnes sent to me for our detectives, and I re-

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 211

turned word to him that they were at his service. Mr.
Moss called at the Superintendent's ofifice, and in
describing his visit there, says : " I saw Mr. Byrnes,
and he said he knew who committed the outrage, and
damned them roundly, and said that he would sift the
matter to the bottom, and would have the guilty
parties, no matter who they were or how high they
were. He said it was a bad condition of affairs if a
mob could drive our men half a mile through the
streets without interference, and the honor of the
Police Department was at stake. He was earnest and
profane."

Three of the ringleaders were arrested by Byrnes.
Mr. Lemmon further testified as follows :

" These three arrested parties were all identified by
our detectives at Police Headquarters, among them
the one who had attempted to assassinate me. I was
sent for by Superintendent Byrnes and requested to
appear at Essex Market Court for the purpose of
identifying, if I could, any of the men whom he had
arrested on information furnished him by us. I ac-
cordingly went to Essex Market Court, and there
heard the keeper instructed to * line-up ' ten men in
the jail and take me in and see if I could identify any
of those who had figured in the mob. I waited for
about thirty minutes, and finally was told by Captain
Devery that they were ready. I went into the jail,
which was a dark, dingy place, and in the very darkest

212 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

part of the jail I saw about twenty men, all in a line,
with their backs turned to the light, making it as hard
for me to identify them as possible. I went up and
down the line several times, while Captain Devery and
the other officials stood and watched me. I finally
turned to Devery and his men and told him that I
had picked out two of the people whom I would swear
were in the mob, one of whom, I stated, was the man
who had attempted to assassinate me. I was told to
go back and place my hand on the men whom I could
identify. I accordingly did this, and placed my hand
on Sugar, and remarked, 'This is the man that stabbed
at me ; I will swear to it. This other man was in the
mob, and one of the ringleaders on the Bowery.'
After I had done this, Captain Devery had the impu-
dence to say to me, ' Who gave you the pointers so as
to identify these men ? ' I informed him that I did
not have any pointers as to how to identify these men,
nor did I need any pointers of him or anyone else.
After this was done, three prisoners, two of whom I
had identified and three of whom all the other de-
tectives had personally identified, were taken into the
court and arraigned before the judge. I was asked if
I positively identified the man who had stabbed at me,
and I told him that I had, and pointed him out."

It is unnecessary to rehearse all the efforts made by
the Superintendent to get out of the hole into which
he had placed himself by the voluble profanity by

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 213

which he had committed himself to the cause of justice
while in conference with Mr. Moss. He insisted that
we should assum.e the part of prosecutors. We re-
fused, and told him to mind what was his own busi-
ness and not ours, and do the prosecuting himself.
We were informed that if we did not prosecute, the
prisoners would be discharged. We said, " Discharge
them then. If the Superintendent of Police does not
care enough for the duties of his office and the reputa-
tion of his Department to prosecute a lot of vagabonds
who, in broad daylight, have set upon the agents of a
chartered society quietly engaged in doing what, as
such agents, it belonged to them to do, let him stand
by the record of his criminal neglect, and bear the ig-
nominy of it."

The prisoners were discharged on November 3d.
The Superintendent decided that there had been no
mob ! By no means, probably, could the Superin-
tendent have made more distinctly apparent his total
unsympathy with the cause of clean and honest mu-
nicipal administration for which our Society inflexibly
stands.

CHAPTER XVIII

WAR ON THE CAPTAINS

The chapter just concluded is parenthetical and
deals only with an incident that branched off from
the main line of events. We have now to recur to the
point at which we had arrived upon securing our four
convictions in the Court of Special Sessions, Novem-
ber 13th.

These convictions were against the keepers of four
disorderly houses in Devery's precinct, of which com-
plaint had been made in our letter addressed to the
Department both in August and October. The Com-
missioners, on the testimony of Byrnes, Williams and
Devery, had declared in both of those months that
there were no such places in the precinct. We there-
fore showed the whitewashing character of their re-
port, and the falsity of the testimony upon which it
was based, by taking the keepers of four houses speci-
fied in both complaints, having them arrested, tried,
convicted, and sentenced.

With this material in hand we went before the
Grand Jury and secured four indictments against Cap-
tain Devery on the 29th of November. The indict-

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 21 5

meat of a captain was a great event, not to say an
unprecedented one. It was a little like the thinning
of the clouds after a long storm, which still leaves it
probable that there may yet be a good deal more rain,
but suggests that there are new influences creeping
into the atmosphere and that it is not going to rain
always. The feeling of the community was well ex-
pressed by the following editorial paragraphs taken
from the Monihig Advertiser on the following day :

" The victory achieved by the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst
in securing the indictment of Captain Devery for mis-
demeanor in permitting the existence of disorderly
houses in his precinct, is not only encouraging to the
decent people who are striving to clean out the moral
plague spots which are corrupting the municipality it-
self, but it is significant of the fact the public begins
to feel and understand, that despite the power and
strength of Tammany Hall, the people are even more
powerful, when aroused, and the machinery of the law
can be successfully invoked to w'ork the reforms to
which they are devoted.

"A few months ago there was a feeling that the
conspiracy headed by Mr. Croker was all-powerful for
evil, and that it was scarcely worth while to struggle
against it ; and it was a question whether this in-
dictment could have been secured so long as jurors
were given to understand that Tammany would 'get
even ' with the man who attacked any of its minions.

" It may also be taken by these heelers as a warning
that they may, after all, reach the end of their ropes
in time. Neither the boss nor the organization itself

2l6 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

is always able to protect them, as they have always be-
lieved. The people have some rights and there is law
to secure them, and that law can be made operative."

These indictments offered us a certain amount of
promise, and yet promise that in our collected moments
we never expected to see fulfilled. If it had been
possible to disassociate Devery from the Police De-
partment, we felt that it would have been easy to con-
vict him. He was not attending to his duties in the
Eleventh Precinct ; community was satisfied of that,
and the Grand Jury were convinced of it, and it was
not difficult to persuade an intelligent jury of the
fact. The trouble, however, was that in convicting
him they would be convicting not him only, but the
whole of the Police Department, for they were all in
it, and were all committed to it. That is why we were
gratified by the indictment of Devery without being
in the least degree elated by it.

Devery was not brought to trial until the following
April, and was acquitted. The large attendance of
police captains indicated that they realized that it was
their trial as much as it was his. The Superintendent
committed himself to the support of the defendant to
the extent of indicating his confidence in the reports
upon the condition of the precinct made to him by
his detectives, and upon which had been based his
own exculpating report to the Commissioners. One
of the effects of the way in which the prosecution was

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 21/

conducted by Assistant District-Attorney Weeks, was
to make us long more ardently for the time when the
District-Attorney's office should become in this city a
stronghold of justice, to the dismay of the criminal
and the encouragement of the righteous.

Captain Devery's acquittal was distinctly a victory
for the Police Department and the other vicious ele-
ments of the community, but even for them the vic-
tory was an expensive one, for the time had now
arrived when success gained by our enemy ceased to
secure the applause of the people at large, or to check
the rising and strengthening current of popular indig-
nation. Devery's acquittal, in view of the strength
of the case we had against him, was a boon to our
cause for which we shall never cease to be profoundly
grateful.

A month after the indictment had been found, we
undertook, on the 27th day of December, to secure
an indictment against Inspector Williams and Cap-
tain Schmittberger. Devery's precinct lay within
Williams's inspection district ; and if the Grand Jury
considered Devery delinquent as captain, for having
a filthy precinct, it seemed reasonable to expect (and
the opinion subsequently stated by Judge Barrett
justified our expectation) that it would consider Will-
iams delinquent as an inspector for having to that
extent a filthy inspection district. Unfortunately,
however, we had now a different Grand Jury to deal
with. There were sitting in December both the regu-

2l8 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

lar jury and an Extraordinary one. We desired to bring
Williams and Schmittberger before the former, but for
some reason the District-Attorney was concerned
to have the regular jury discharged, notwithstanding
the fact that its members had expressed themselves
as willing to sit longer if the Society for the Pre-
vention of Crime had any cases to bring before them.
It is not easy to explain Nicoll's anxiety to get them
out of the way, unless we attribute it to his acquaint-
ance with the fact that they were desirous of handling
our interests and gave token of possessing the intelli-
gence and integrity to handle them with. And so
we were shoved off onto the Extraordinary Jury —
against which we had been earnestly warned — and
suffered defeat.

We are not whining, but we desire that there should
be a clear and widespread understanding of the solid
wall of opposition against which all our blows had to
be delivered. The District-Attorney's office has been,
from the first, an obdurate obstacle and a biting exas-
peration. It was well-nigh impossible to gain entrance
to the Grand-Jury room, except over the recalcitrant
and protesting body of the District- Attorney. In the
matter of Schmittberger, just referred to, the mutual
antipathy of the District-Attorney's office and our
own reached its climax. After our charge against
Williams and Schmittberger had been thrown out by
the Extraordinary Jury, I issued, in behalf of the So-
ciety for the Prevention of Crime, a statement cover-

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 219

ing the previous six months of our controversy with
the District-Attorney, which is too long to be inserted
entire, but which was excellently summarized at the
time by Dr. J. N. Hallock (editor of the Christian at
Work, a member of the Society for the Prevention of
Crime), and printed in his issue of January ii, 1894, as
follows :

!* Dr. Parkhurst's two strong points are a thorough
conviction of the righteousness of his cause and his
entire confidence in the intelligence and moral sense
of the people. And in no instance are these more
conspicuous than in the appeal he has just made from
the District-Attorney's office in this city directly to
the people in the case of Inspector Williams and Cap-
tain Schmittberger, who are charged with a plain and
wilful neglect of their duty. Such an appeal he has
shown to be not only wise, but absolutely necessary.
All the influence which is possessed by the combina-
tion of politics and crime that governs New York has
been exerted to prove that the work of Dr. Parkhurst
is based upon a misconception of the law and of the
facts, and that therefore his charges really have no
standing in court. The failure of the Grand Jury to
indict Schmittberger and Williams would, of course, be
paraded as actual proof of the unsubstantial nature of
his work. The statement of Dr. Parkhurst puts the
responsibility for the failure where it belongs, and
New York and her perplexed and outraged friends, as
well as the better classes of the people everywhere, are
delighted to have found at last a man and a Society
who dare and are able to persist in fighting for the

220 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

enforcement of law and the removal from power of
the partners in crime, with as great pertinacity as
those who violated the law. Dr. Parkhurst has vividly
and tersely given the story of the efforts of the So-
ciety to secure indictments, and has placed ex-District-
Attorney Nicoll right where he belongs, and at the
same time effectively notified Colonel Fellows that the
men behind the organization know the law, and are not
to be bulldozed or cowed into inaction. He reviews
the history of the Society's dealings with the District-
Attorney's office and the Grand Jury for the past six
months. The public is familiar with the greater part
of it, but there is one incident to which attention
should be called. After unsuccessful efforts to induce
Mr. Nicoll to present the evidence against the police
captains to the Grand Jury last summer, a meeting
was arranged by the District-Attorney and Mr. Cross,
the foreman of the jury, and Mr. Frank Moss, the law-
yer of the Society. The men were brought together
by Mr. Nicoll, and both he and Mr. Cross argued that
no attack should be made upon the police at that time,
because there might be labor riots in September. Mr.
Moss thought on that very account the police should
be looked after at once, so that they would know what
was required of them and be in condition to work if
the possible riots appeared. But no evidence collected
by the Society could be got before that jury. Mr.
Cross was again foreman in December, and when the
evidence was at last submitted he failed to find indict-
ments. When the November jury indicted Captain
Devery, Dr. Parkhurst was refused the jury-room till
he had agreed not to ask for the indictment of Super-
intendent Byrnes. Efforts were made to get before

OUR KIGIIT WITH TAMMANY 221

the regular December jury, and they were also anxious
to hear from the Society. But Dr. Parkhurst was put
oft" until it was too late to summon witnesses, although
he was told that he might present his case on the last
day of the term. He could not get ready on such
short notice, and finally, after he had informed the
public of this treatment, arrangements were made to
allow him to appear before the Extraordinary Jury, of
which iSIr. Cross, the man who had urged Mr. Moss
not to attack the police, was foreman. This last
statement shows why indictments were not found, and
makes evident the fact that vital evidence was pur-
posely omitted by the District-Attorney. Every man
of average intelligence knows that Williams and
Schmittberger could not possibly be ignorant of the
existence of houses of ill-repute which they had not
closed, and no one believes that an impartial jury
would have failed to indict these men if the facts
could have been given, as they would have been given,
if the District-Attorney had not interfered. It was
evidently without a knowledge of these facts that
some of the Grand Jury innocently recommended that
tliere be harmony and concerted action between the
Police Department and the Society for the Prevention
of Crime. ...

"In conclusion, Dr. Parkhurst writes these ringing
and truthful words — words which will live long after
Tammany has been overthrown and ceased to exist
even in the memory of New Yorkers : ' Justice will
not be a common commodity in this city until the
District-Attorney's office is held by one whose judicial
sense is not mortgaged to his political affiliations, and
whose lovaltv to his friends does not interfere with

222 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

his sworn obligation to mete out to all classes their
independent and impartial dues. This statement will
have served its purpose if it shall have made some-
what more evident to the community the stress of
wind and tide against which we have to make head,
and the impossibility of securing in this city anything
more than the caricature of justice, till at the polls
some of the joints and ligaments have been broken
that knit our municipal government into a compact
body of brigandage and defiance.'"

Whatever might be the immediate issue of such
efforts, the Society still felt that the best means of
strengthening the growing sentiment of community
would be to continue in the same line of warfare upon
other captains whose precincts were exceptionally
corrupt, and we selected as the next candidate for
our attention, Captain Richard Doherty, then of the
Fourteenth Precinct. All of this seems small matter
now, at a time when one captain is behind bars and so
many are being measured for their striped suits ; but
it Avas all we could do at the time, and fulfilled its
object by paving the way for results of a more pro-
nounced character to be achieved by the Senate Com-
mittee further on. Later, in November of '93, we had
made a careful examination of Captain Doherty's
precinct, and had completed thirty-five cases of gam-
bling and disorderly houses, and sent the letters to
Doherty, to the Superintendent, and the Commission-
ers, and demanded that the police do their duty and
close the places up.

OUR riGIIT WITH TAMMANY 223

A more important move was that made against
Captain Slevin, of the Oak Street Station. Near the
end of December, in the same year, in our letter of
complaint, gambling and disorderly houses were spe-
cified by street and number, and we were prepared, if
necessary, to back up our charges by evidence that
had been carefully secured. The letter which we ad-
dressed to the Commissioners was as follows :

" To the Honorable the Board of Police Commissioners^

" Gentlemen : We submit to you herewith copies
of communications which have this day been trans-
mitted to Thomas Byrnes, Superintendent of Police,
and to Captain Edward Slevin, of the Fourth Police
Precinct.

" While not members of the Police Department, you
nevertheless constitute its administrative head, and
are, in the last analysis, responsible for everything
in the way of either incompetency, negligence, or
criminality that distinguishes any part of the service.

" It is incumbent upon us, therefore, to direct your
attention to the subjoined list of resorts which have
been found by our detectives to be maintained as dis-
orderly houses, and to demand that you immediately
see to it that the pressure of the Department is ex-
ercised in the immediate and impartial suppression of
the same.

"By examining the files in your office you will dis-
cover that complaints for the non-enforcement of law
have been, on three occasions, urged by the Society
for the Prevention of Crime against this same officer.

" Your own appreciation of the fitness of things, it

224 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

would seem, would hardly make it necessary for us to
say that in order to determine fully the validity of
our complaint, you will need to employ agencies other
than those which are by the terms of the complaint
made defendants in the case.

" Respectfully yours,

" C. H. Parkhurst,

" T. D. KllNNESON,

" Frank Moss,

Executive Committee.
"December 22, 1893."

The following paragraph appeared in our address to
Captain Slevin :

"Your ofificial position presupposes your acquaint-
ance with the statute and the rule above cited, and it
would be superfluous to bring them to your notice
were it not that their intent is evidently missed or
ignored by you in your administration of the affairs of
your own precinct.

" We ask no question as to the reasons for your dis-
regard of the specific requirements just quoted. We
simply affirm the fact of such disregard, and insist upon
it that you correct your methods of administration.
In particular we demand that you at once deal in the
manner prescribed with the following places situated
in your precinct, which our detectives have repeatedly
visited, and which they are prepared to show are being
run as disorderly houses."

The report made to the Commissioners by Byrnes,
on January 5th following, exonerated Slevin, but the

OUK FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 22 5

Commissioners deferred action until further infor-
mation sliould be obtained from the Excise Board.
When this information was received, early in February
following, it confirmed the truth of our charges, and
put in an awkward position Inspector Williams, Su-
perintendent Byrnes, and Captain Slevin, who had
agreed in presenting a whitewashing report to the
Commissioners. It was then that the Commissioners
asked our Society to furnish them the evidence which
we had obtained against the houses complained of
in Slevin's precinct. This we declined to do, and re-
plied to them in the following letter, which is repro-
duced in full, as exhibiting with some completeness
the general situation at that date.

" To the Honorable the Police Commissioners :

"Your request has been considered carefully and re-
spectfully, and we regret to feel ourselves obliged to
decline the same, and for the following reasons :

" I. Being yourselves an integral part of the Depart-
ment whose fidelity our Society has made it a part of
its business to impeach, you are an interested party,
and therefore naturally lack that quality of impartial-
ity which can alone fit you to sit in judgment upon
adduced testimony, or make your finding to be of
judicial value.

" 2. We have a number of times approached you
with information carefully prepared and honestly in-
tended, but the indifference, and, in one instance, con-
tempt, with which such information was received by
you affords us no ground upon which to suppose that
15

226 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

any additional facts upon the same lines would be re-
garded any more seriously by you were we to put
them before you.

" 3. The character of the testimony adduced before
the Board of Excise by some of your own detectives
against certain of the houses of which we have com-
plained to you, leads us to feel that, if evidence as to
the condition of things in the Fourth Precinct is what
you want, you already have it. The charges to which
they have sworn already go beyond anything which
we have alleged in our complaint to you.

" 4. Our reluctance to avail of your Board as a tri-
bunal before which to seek the convictions of any
officer of the force is greatly enhanced by the issue of
all such efforts in the past. Four captains have been
tried before your Board since 1887 on complaint of
private citizens. First, Captain Alexander S. Williams
was tried on charges signed by Howard Crosby and
others. There were thirty-five witnesses for the pro-
secution. Commissioner Porter alone rendered an
opinion, which was a scorching one, and thoroughly
sustained the prosecution, and held that corrupt con-
sideration was the ground of Williams's neglect. After
a delay of six weeks the Board voted two to two. At
the same session Williams was promoted to the posi-
tion of inspector. Second, Captains Carpenter and
McLaughlin were subsequently tried on specifications
signed by D. J. Whitney and Howard Crosby. Com-
missioners voted two to two. The testimony had all
been referred to Commissioner Voorhis, who reported
to the Board that the charges were sustained. Shortly
after McLaughlin was promoted to the position of in-
spector. Third, Subsequently to this. Captain Killilea

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 22/

was tried on complaint of the Forty-fourth Street As-
sociation. The result was the same, tie vote. Re-
cently an inspector (Williams) and two captains were
put on trial by Superintendent Byrnes for neglect of
duty, and Commissioner Voorhis, having been suc-
ceeded by Mr. Sheehan, the vote for conviction was
reduced to one, and that for acquittal increased to
three.

" 5. We may add to this also the fact that we do not
care to impair the value of our detectives by submit-
ting them any oftener than is necessary to the scrutiny
of your officers, to say nothing of the personal violence
to which they would render themselves liable if, as in
the instance of their appearance at the Essex Market
Court, they were to adventure themselves in that part
of the city unprotected."

So far as I am aware this case of Slevin has never
been disposed of.

In January, 1894, we studied up Captain Price's baili-
wick, from which more complaints had reached us
than from almost any other. The steps taken by us
were similar to those taken in the previous instances
and need not be specified.

In April of 1894 we set our men at work on Captain
Martens's Precinct (Station-house on East Thirty-fifth
Street), and instead of issuing letters complaining of
several resorts, concentrated our charges upon one
house, and that in easy view of my own residence,
and almost directly beneath the droppings of Mar-
tens's official sanctuary. The following letter was

228 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

sent to him, signed, as in every case, by the three
members of the Executive Committee :

" To F. W. Martens, Captain of the Twenty-fiist Pre-
cinct.

" Sir : Our object in this communication is to call
your attention to the filthy resort which you are tol-
erating at Corcoran's Saloon, southwest corner of
Third Avenue and Thirty-fifth Street. It would hardly
seem necessary that your attention should be ' called '
to the place, however, as it is situated close by you —
almost under the shadow of your own station-house,
in fact — so that information from us ought to be the
last thing in the world that could be of service to
you.

" There are but few resorts which our detectives
have visited that are reported by them as being so
open and unblushingly vile. Being less than thirty
paces from the station-house, your officers, of course,
are continually filing past it, and it would be an insult
to your powers of discernment, as well as theirs, to
imagine that you are ignorant of the matter, at least
in its general features. Viciousness under its elegant
disguises may have its apologists, but in the resort
referred to there are no disguises about it. It is a
den of frank, brute animalism, and you know it ; of
course you know it.

" We have been trying to conceive what sort of in-
stincts you are animated by that you can enjoy or
even endure the close proximity of a hole that is so
ingeniously filthy. We have observed the like prox-
imity in the instance of certain other station-houses.
Perhaps you can tell us whether there is any special

OUR FIGHr Win I TAMMANY 229

significance attaching to such proximity. We do not
mean to imply that the Department considers such
a resort a necessary adjunct of the official head-
quarters of a precinct ; still any man is a fool that
su[)poses that Corcoran can put a bawdy-house annex
onto his saloon and run it up so close to your office
without there being a certain amount of understanding
between the two institutions.

*' If, as we would fain believe, your instincts are out-
raged by the pro.ximity of such a nest of nastiness, by
what sedative considerations are we to suppose that
those instincts are kept tranquil under the severe and
constant aggravation ? We merely want to know
what counterweight you avail of to preserve the equa-
nimity of your righteous soul when pulled upon by the
distracting irritations of Corcoran's dive.

" It is an interesting feature of the case that al-
though Commissioner Mac Lean was known to have
taken steps last Friday looking to your investigation
before the Board, your neighbor on the corner, and
other neighbors only a little more remote, were run-
ning their lecherous traffic with the same openness
and enthusiasm Friday evening that they had been in
the earlier part of the week ; all of which, at least,
suggests the confidence you have in the bulk of the
Commissioners.

** The Society for the Prevention of Crime has never
claimed that the social evil is going to be entirely
eradicated, but there are depths of sexual brutality
that no man that has not become a beast can contem-
plate without revulsion and loathing, and an institu-
tion of that character you are tolerating, if not pro-
tecting, at the place specified.

230 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

" We make no apology for the unequivocal terms in
which we have couched our complaint. We are deal-
ing with a captain who has recently been convicted of
shabby discharge of official duty, and there are times
when language that is impassioned and indignant is
the only mode of address which self-respecting men
have either the power or the right to employ.
'' Executive Committee,

" C. H. Parkhurst,
" T. D. Kenneson,
" Frank Moss.

" Rooms of the Society for the Prevention of Crime,
" United Charities Building. April 23, 1894."

CHAPTER XIX

THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE APPEALS TO ALBANY

No event has transpired during the history of our
work that has operated more directly and powerfully
to define and compact popular sentiment than the
acquittal of Captain Devery. It was far more to our
advantage that we were defeated in our efforts against
him than it would have been had we been successful.
The public was satisfied with the proofs which we pre-
sented of his criminal negligence ; and his acquittal
under those circumstances was a telling demonstra-
tion of the fact that when it is a matter of trying a
policeman, facts and proofs are of no significance. It
convinced reputable people that we had reached a
point here in this city where might makes right, and
that the only move by which right could be restored
to its proper supremacy was by puncturing our iniqui-
tous system to its vitals, and effecting its complete
subversion. We had expected the acquittal of Devery,
and were serenely resigned to such issue, believing
that our defeat, in this instance, so far from shaking
the popular confidence in our cause, would rather knit
it into tougher tension, and that the people would in

ZJZ

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

some way soon voice themselves in a manner full of
promise and effect. For some time there had been in
the air the premonition of a popular demand for some
kind of authoritative investigation of the Police De-
partment that should be qualified to reach the inner-
most facts of the situation. The Society for the
Prevention of Crime was scarcely disposed to move
in the matter, especially as we were not persuaded
that if a special tribunal were constituted, or a Com-
mittee of Investigation were sent down from Albany,
it would be any improvement on previous experiments
of the same kind. It is not an easy thing to find
any considerable number of men, inured to political
methods and saturated with political influences, that
can be trusted to do thorough work along lines where
political considerations are liable to present and assert
themselves.

While the Society for the Prevention of Crime and
the public at large were standing in this earnest but
waiting posture, the effective initiative was taken by
the Chamber of Commerce.

At a special meeting of that body, held on January
25, 1894, the following resolutions were presented
and moved by Mr. Gustav H. Schwab :

" Resolved, That the Committee of Five,* appointed
by the Chairman to represent this Chamber before the
Legislature and the Constitutional Convention of this

* This Committee, which had just been appointed by the President
of the Chamber, consisted of ]. Edward Simmons, Samuel D. Babcock,

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 233

State, be requested to advocate the separation of
municipal elections from the State and national elec-
tions, and genuine ballot reform.

" Resolved, That said Committee be further re-
quested to advocate a single head for the Police
Department of this city.

^'Resolved., That, in the opinion of this Chamber,
there should be a thorough legislative investigation of
said Department before any radical change is made in
its administration."

The resolutions were seconded and remarks made
upon them by several members of the Chamber.

MR. JACOB H. SCHIFF.

" While I am in favor, as Mr. Schwab knows, of the
object of his resolutions, of the end he seeks to attain,
I do hope that it will not be passed by this Chamber.
We are entering upon dangerous ground if we take up
the subject of municipal politics — if that expression is
not a paradox. So long as we busy ourselves with the
question of taxation, we are in our proper element ;
but I think it is mighty dangerous when, as a Cham-
ber of Commerce, we take up such questions. These
are questions belonging to Good Government Clubs
and City Clubs, and to other semi-political societies.
The Chamber of Commerce should have nothing to do
with them."

John Sloane, Henry W. Cannon, and Gustav H. Schwab, to which,
subsequently, Charles Stewart Smith, President of the Chamber, was
added and made Chairman.

234 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

MR, CORNELIUS N. BLISS.

" It [the Police] has been a very great and valu-
able Department of this city, so far as the rank and file
are concerned ; but during the last twelve or eighteen
months we have been overwhelmed in all of the jour-
nals in this city with charges against the members of
the police, especially the higher ranks of it ; and these
charges go even down to the rank and file ; and I
think that before we attempt to suggest even to the
Legislature that we shall have a bi-partisan Police
Board, or four Police Commissioners, two of each
party, or before we trust the entire affairs of the
Police Department to one man, whose appointment we
know nothing of, we should pause and ask the Legis-
lature to find out if the charges that have been made
are true. I believe that nine-tenths of the people of
this city believe that they are true, to a large extent,
and I think it should be known and ascertained before
we recommend any definite change."

ALEXANDER E. ORR.

" As a member of this Chamber I think I would be
as jealous as any other member here to bar the door
against the possibility of the introduction of any poli-
tical questions into the Chamber. I think that it
would be very dangerous ground ; but I think if, as
merchants and citizens of New York and Brooklyn,
having an interest in that which is for the benefit of
the mercantile interests, and the furtherance and main-
tenance of the position that we have now, we keep

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 235

silent when these great questions are being determined,
we should be recreant to the trust that has been re-
posed in us, and to the position which we have always
claimed to be in, that is, to be leaders in matters per-
taining to commerce and to commercial interests, and
that we virtually would be taking a back seat.

" Now I am one of those who hold that absolutely,
from A to Z, politics has nothing to do with municipal
affairs, nothing whatever. I cannot understand how
a well-administered Police Board or a well-administered
Fire Department has anything to do with the Demo-
cratic or Republican conditions as they obtain in
national affairs. I cannot understand how under any
circumstances we as merchants allow them to inter-
fere with the management of our own business. And
when we have to appoint persons who are to control
those elements which define and protect our businesses
and our properties and our lives, I say that when a re-
organization is to be had, it is imperative upon us as
thinking men, thinking merchants, fulfilling the obli-
gations laid upon us, to come together and assert our
rights and make our influence felt when we are creat-
ing the system of government which is to create this
municipal management."

By the invitation of the Chamber, an address was
delivered by Joel B. Erhardt, a former Commissioner
of Police, discussing the bill at that time pending in
the Legislature, providing for the appointment of a
non-partisan Board of Police Commissioners for the
city of New York, from which, however, it would not
be in place to make extract here as he concerned him-

236 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

self rather with the organization of the Police Depart-
ment than with the investigation of the police force.

J. EDWARD SIMMONS.

" It seems to me, after the very careful presentation
of this case by Colonel Erhardt, that it must be apparent
to all who are here to-day that the Police Department
certainly needs looking after in some way. I am in
favor of this Chamber taking exactly the position that
is proposed in the resolution that has been submitted,
and I concur heartily with the remarks that have been
made by the able Vice-President of this institution
(Mr. Orr). It seems to me that the Chamber puts
itself in a position where it suggests. It does not dic-
tate, it does not say anything except what it says in
the resolution that has been offered, but it suggests
that an investigation be made by the proper authorities
of the State. Now, if a condition prevails such as we
have reason to believe does prevail, surely it is not
outside or beyond the limits of this institution or its
duty, to suggest to the Legislature, as proposed in the
resolution that has been offered, that a committee be
appointed and a legislative inquiry be instituted into
the condition of affairs which we suppose exists in this
city. Therefore, it seems to me entirely dignified and
proper that this Chamber, which is made up of tax-
payers, of men who have large interests at stake here
— it seems proper that if the Police Department needs
investigation it is right that this association should
say so, and therefore I heartily endorse the resolu-
tion."

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 237

A. FOSTER HIGGINS.

" I am not at all afraid that we as merchants are
going out of our proper sphere of duty in arraigning
these things, and in calling a spade by its name, — a
spade. When we hear such stories as we do to-day
about the condition of our Police Department, I feel
that our liberties and our rights and our property are
jeopardized, and that the merchants of this city should
not be afraid to come here and say what they think
about it. I cannot see any reason why we should not
as a Chamber express ourselves upon a matter of such
grave importance as this is to us. Politics once drove
us into a civil war. We did not hesitate to come here
and express our opinion on the subject, and array our-
selves on the side of law and order. Now it is a ques-
tion whether outlawry and disorder shall prevail in
this city, or whether the city shall be properly gov-
erned."

OSCAR S. STRAUSS.

" I hope that the question of the police investiga-
tion, so far as this Chamber is concerned, will be
voted down ; not because I am not in favor of it, not
because I do not believe that every member here is in
favor of correcting the abuses, but because it will
bring into operation partisan machinery which we as
a body of merchants who are of all shades of party
should not be used as a rider for. While I am de-
cidedly in favor of the division of the elections, I
think that the other question we had better leave
alone, for it may result that the manner in which the

238 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMAJsY

investigation will be carried on will produce another
meeting of this Chamber, so that we may have to take
a back step by reason of the investigation not being-
carried on in a proper manner. I hope the question
will be voted down."

CLARENCE W. BOWEN.

" I hope for the honor and credit of the Chamber of
Commerce that the resolutions which have been read
will be universally adopted ; we ought not to be par-
tisans, but we ought to do what we think is our duty
from a conscientious stand-point as citizens of this
city, and I therefore hope that the resolutions will be
unanimously adopted."

The discussion was concluded by the following ad-
dress from President Charles Stewart Smith, Vice-
President Orr in the chair :

" I have attended nearly every meeting of this
Chamber for more than twenty-five years, excepting
when I have been absent from the city. I think I
have been a member of the Chamber for twenty-seven
years, and I never knew a resolution offered in this
Chamber with a design, or that had the effect of be-
ing a mere partisan movement. I do not think that
this has any such design or will have any such effect.
The question which concerns us as merchants, in my
view, is this : How can laws be made, amended or de-
feated, which will favorably affect the commerce of
this city ? Now we have unanimously passed a resolu-
tion which states that the commercial prosperity of a city

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 239

/s intintatdy connected with its gave niment. I believe that
absolutely. I believe that our taxes are too high and
that they may be made lower. I believe that the de-
partment of the city of New York (the police) that
spends five millions a year, one-seventh of our whole
expenses, needs investigation. I believe so from the
impression that I had before Colonel Erhardt's paper
was read, and my impression has been very much
strengthened by that paper. Besides there are
charges, more or less openly made, of grave irregu-
larity in this department, not to use the more serious'
words — bribery and blackmail. Either this is true or
false, and it concerns the good name of the city to know
the truth. My friend Dr. Parkhurst believes the worst
is true. Now I do not think that any merchants in
New York need be frightened by the cry of 'politics.'
I believe in a man being a practical politician ; a man
of convictions can't help it — his duty demands it. I
claim to be a practical politician, and always hope to
be ; I am one of those who believe that the ambition
of politicians should be satisfied by state and national
politics and not by municipal affairs. (Applause.) Now
if we want good government in this city we must have
good laws which affect municipal affairs, and we are
not to be scared off from the amendment of a bad law
by the idea that politicians want it or don't want it.
We don't want it because we are politicians, but we
want it because we are citizens. I think it is time
that the citizens of New York had the courage of
their convictions and rose above partisanship into the
higher plane of citizenship. Until then we shall have
no genuine reform in municipal affairs. (Applause.)"

CHAPTER XX

THE SENATORIAL INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE

The resolution of the Chamber of Commerce asking
for a senatorial investigation of the Police Depart-
ment was adopted January 25, 1894. In response to
this action of the Chamber, and in deference to the
earnest sentiment prevailing in this city, the resolution
authorizing such investigation was introduced into the
Senate by Senator Clarence Lexow, January 29th, and
was in these terms :

" JV/iereas, It has been charged and maintained that
the Police Department of the city of New York is cor-
rupt ; that grave abuses exist in said department ; that
in said city the laws for the suppression of crime and
the municipal ordinances and regulations duly en-
acted for the peace, security, and police of said city
are not strictly enforced by said Department, and by
the police force acting thereunder ; that said laws and
ordinances when enforced are enforced by said De-
partment and said police force with partiality and
favoritism, and that such partiality and favoritism
are the result of corrupt bargains between offenders
against said laws or ordinances on the one hand, and
the police force on the other ; that money and prom-
ises of service to be rendered are given and paid to

OUR IK'.irr WITH TAMMANY 241

public officials by the keepers or proprietors of gam-
ing-houses, disorderly houses, liquor saloons, and
others who have offended or are offending against
said law or ordinances in exchange for promises of
immunity from punishment or police interference ;
and that said Department and said police force, by
means of threat and otherwise, extort money or other
valuable consideration from many persons in said city
as the price of such immunity from police interference
or punishment for real or supposed violations of said
laws and ordinances ; and

Whereas. A strong public sentiment demands of this
Senate an investigation of all the matters above men-
tioned for the purpose of remedying and preventing
such abuses by proper legislation ; now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the President pro tempore of the
Senate be, and he is hereby authorized to appoint
seven Senators who shall be a Special Committee of
this Senate, and one of whom shall be the President
pro tempore of the Senate, with power and authority
to investigate all and singular the aforesaid matters
and charges, and that said Committee have full power
to prosecute its inquiries in any and every direction
in its judgment necessary and proper to enable it to
obtain and report the information required by this
resolution ; that said Committee report to the Senate
with such recommendations as in its judgment the
public interests require. Said Committee is given
authority to send for persons and papers, to employ a
stenographer and such counsel and other assistants as
it may deem necessary, and to hold sessions in the
cities of New York and Albany. The Committee shall
conclude its investigation in time to report to the Sen-
16

242 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

ate on or before February 20, 1894, to the end that
proper legislation may be enacted to suppress said
evils. The Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate shall at-
tend such Committee and serve all subpoenas issued
thereby, and perform all duties as Sergeant-at-Arms
of such Committee. And be it further

'■'■ Ri'solvcd, That it is the sense of this Senate that it
is contrary to public policy and to the interests of
good order that any person giving evidence before
said Committee leading to show that he has been a
party to the practices above mentioned, should be in-
dicted or prosecuted upon evidence so given or ad-
missions so made by him."

On February 15, 1894, the Senate extended the
time, within which the Investigating Committee was
directed to make a report, to the end of the session.
The time and scope of said Committee was still farther
extended by subsequent action of the Senate as fol-
lows :

" Whereas, It appears that it is impracticable to
make a report within the time so limited ; therefore
be it

^^ Resolved, That the said Committee, be, and it is,
hereby authorized and empowered to continue the in-
vestigation in said Senate Document, No. 27, and said
resolution of February 15, 1894, provided for until the
next session of the Senate, in January, 1895, and that
said Committee have all the power and authority dur-
ing said recess conferred upon it in and by said reso-
lution.

OUR riC.HT WITH TAMMANY 243

'• Rc'solvc-d, 'riiat said Committee be, and it hereby is,
authorized and empowered, in its discretion, until the
next session of the Senate in 1895, to examine and in-
vestigate the Departments of the Commissioners of
Charities and Correction, Excise, and the Police Courts
of the city of New York, or such of them as it may
deem proper and expedient, with the same power and
authority, until said next session of the Senate, con-
ferred upon it by virtue of said resolution, and further

'■'■Resolved, That such Committee be instructed to
report at the next session of the Senate, and not later
than January 15, 1895."

The Committee authorized by this resolution was
constituted as follows :

Senators Lexow, O'Connor, Robertson, Pound, Sax-
ton, Cantor, and Bradley.

The following telegram was received here almost
immediately after the names of the Investigating Com-
mittee were announced, indicating their readiness to
undertake their work, or at least their curiosity to
come down and inspect our work :

" Senate Committee to Investigate Police Depart-
ment of New York will meet at the Hotel Metropole
Friday evening at four o'clock. Like to have you
present, and ready to suggest names of counsel to
conduct the investigation, from which the Committee
may make its selection. ^Ve will be ready to hear
testimony Saturday at ten a.m.

"Clarence Lexow, Chairtnan."

244 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

The above notification was sent to the Chamber of
Commerce, to the Board of Trade, and to the Society
for the Prevention of Crime.

The Committee made their first appearance in town
on the evening of February ist, and convened in the
parlor of the Hotel Metropole, a number of gentlemen
interested in the investigation — among others, Messrs.
Charles Stewart Smith, Darwin R. James, Gustav
Schwab, and myself — being admitted to the confer-
ence. Probably none of us ever attended a gathering
so critical in its character that was so absolutely un-
interesting and hopeless. After the Committee had
disposed themselves and been called to order by Mr.
Lexow, the Chairman stated that they were a Sena-
torial Committee of Investigation, and that they were
now present rn their judicial capacity, and called upon
Mr. Smith, as representative of the Chamber which
had requested the investigation, to state his case.
Mr. Smith courteously replied that he had no case,
but supposed the Committee had come down to make
one. The Senators gave quiet token of a sense of
rebuff and of having their feelings crumpled.

" Then certainly Dr. Parkhurst has a case ? " said
Chairman Lexow.

With possibly less urbanity than had been exhibited
by Mr. Smith, I replied that I not only had no case,
but that I had serious misgivings as to the wisdom of
their coming down to New York anyway.

When we remember the cordial relations which were

OUR FIGHT Win I TAMMANY 245

subsequently established, it is almost ludicrous to re-
call the dubious and tentative way in which we felt of
each other that preliminary evening.

Up to that time the Senators had had not the slightest
inkling or suspicion of what they had come down for.
They had heard a good deal about the fault that some
of us had been finding with the police force, and they
imagined that all they had to do was to put in two
days a week for the next three weeks (or till the 20th
of February) sizing up the researches of the Society
for the Prevention of Crime. In other words, they
had come down, not to investigate the Police Depart-
ment, but to investigate our investigation of it. At
a late hour the Committee adjourned, in a distinctly
interrogative frame of mind.

The session held the day following was of the same
general complexion, only rather more so. Clear in-
timations of distrust were expressed by some of us,
and the Committee was politely reminded that there
had been a previous committee sent down from Albany
on a similar errand, and that when the inquisition be-
gan to grow interesting, the committee was "called
off." We ventured to suggest whether there was any
danger of history repeating itself. We none of us
wanted to show any disrespect to our visiting states-
men, but we had scruples against so far committing
ourselves to the senatorial wave as to run the risk of
being swamped if the tide should happen to go out to
sea. We knew we had been working two years in ac-

246 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANV

complishing what little we had, and that it would take
these seven Senators, many of them from remote parts
of the State, and as ignorant of the details of the
situation as though they had been born on the Pacific
Slope, more than eighteen days (they were, by the
terms of their resolution, to make their report to the
Senate on or before the 20th of February) to get to
the real inwardness of our Police Department. (It
might be remarked parenthetically that they sat for
nearly a year, and even then stopped before they were
t/iroug/i.)

We must not make too long a story of this. We
were troubled not only by the limitations of time im-
posed by the senatorial resolution, but even after the
Committee came to a realizing sense of the fact that
anything like a thorough investigation meant pro-
longed work on their own parts, and an extension of
time beyond the date fixed by the Senate, we had to
confront the troublesome question of counsel. The
name of almost every prominent lawyer in the city was
canvassed. No one seemed anxious to touch the case.
Some of those who were approached questioned the
sincerity of the Committee. Some doubted if a case
could be made against the police. Some were afraid
of incurring the displeasure of Tammany Hall. In
some instances there was hesitancy to believe that
counsel's fees would ever be paid, it being remembered
that one legal gentleman who had served in a similar
capacity had never had his bill honored by the State,

OUR FIGUT Wiril lAMMANY 247

and there was some reasonable question whether Gov-
ernor Flower would ever endorse an appropriation bill
that looked to the exploiting of Tammany Hall. In
almost all the above instances Mr. Goff s name had
been mentioned as associate counsel, but his phenom-
enal fitness for the position was not at that time suffi-
ciently suspected to allow of his being largely con-
sidered for the position of first counsel. The chival-
rous stand which he had taken in the (kirdner trial, as
already referred to, as well as the signal ability he at
that time displayed, easily secured the confidence of
those of us who had known him in that connection,
and it came about after a little, that the judgment of
those, whose opinions weighed in the matter, more
and more gathered about him, and he became the gen-
eral choice, subject only to the condition that relations
mutually satisfactory could be agreed upon between
him and the members of the Lexow Committee. This
last, however, was a result not easily compassed. Mr.
Goff was a Democrat, and five members of the Com-
mittee were Republicans ; Mr. Goff was obstinate, and
so were the Committee, and neither trusted the other.
Aside from all that, there were secret political influ-
ences at work, of which I have documentary proof in
my possession, aiming to subordinate the investigation
to political ends. All of that matter we shall best pass
over, however. Mr. Smith and myself made a special
trip to Albany to the end of mediating between Mr.
Goff and the Committee. He suspected them, and they

248 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

considered him dictatorial. We carried up with us the
following statement of conditions which Mr. Goff, Mr.
Smith, and myself had agreed that he ought to insist
upon :

" First, that the authority of the Senate to the Com-
mittee to continue the investigation after the adjourn-
ment of the Legislature shall be made absolute.

"Second, that thirty days intervene before the Com-
mittee give public hearing, and that the sittings there-
after be as nearly as possible from day to day.

" Third, that Mr. Goff have privilege of selecting
the associate counsel, with the approval of the Com-
mittee.

" Fourth, that counsel may employ such clerical and
other assistance as may be deemed necessary in the
prosecution of the inquiry.

" Fifth, that the Committee shall furnish ways and
means to maintain a proper and efficient service dur-
ing the whole of the inquiry.

" Sixth, that counsel be not restricted or limited in
the scope of the investigation, but shall be free to
push all lines of inquiry which may be relevant or
pertinent to the letter and spirit of the resolution of
the committee."

We told Mr. Lexow, in Albany, that if the terms of
agreement, as drawn up by us gentlemen, seemed to
him stringent, he must remember that they were
drafted by men who were breathing an atmosphere of
utter distrust in him and in all of his Committee. We
told them that thev could trust Mr. (ioff, and then we

OUR FI(;H'r WITH TAMMANY 249

came back to New Vork aiul lokl Mr. Golf that he
could trust them.

The question was finally settled on a critical Satur-
day morning in Mr. Goff's ofifice. Mr. Smith, Mr.
Goff, and myself will doubtless always remember the
scene. Mr. Goff recently described it graphically at a
public dinner. Mr. Smith drove and I coaxed, and
between us both the noble Irishman succumbed, and
the destiny of the Senatorial Investigating Commit-
tee was settled.

The Sutherland episode it is perhaps just as well
not to rehearse. W. A. Sutherland, Esq., an honorable
gentleman and an excellent lawyer, but as ignorant of
the situation here in New Vork as though he had been
reared in South America, was, for inscrutable purposes,
brought upon the scene from Western New York, to be
counsel to the Committee, without any precise defi-
nition of the relations which were to subsist between
him and Mr. Goff. It threatened at one time to
wreck the investigation, but little by little his personal
presence faded out from among us, and his connection
with the investigation has shrunk into an impalpable
memory. We attribute to him none but the highest
motives, but his introduction into the case was, on the
part of the Committee, or, perhaps, it should be said,
on the part of certain parties outside who exercised
a dominating influence over certain members of the
Committee, a mistake, and for a time sadly rasped
the nervous irritability of a community that was on the

250 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

constant verge of scepticism touching the investiga-
tion and all that pertained to it.

The Senate Committee commenced to take evidence
on March 9th, limiting themselves, however, for the
time, to the matter of election frauds. The inquisi-
tion proper, however, did not begin till Mr. Goff's ap-
pearance, more than two months later.

Mr. Delancey NicoU had been retained by certain
of the police officials to protect their imperilled in-
terests before the Committee. But as Chairman
Lexow introduced the investigation by an assertion
of the position, that the Committee would not be
bound by the ordinary rules of evidence, and would let
in everything that would help to illuminate the situa-
tion, it did very little good for NicoU to " Object ; "
and either because he found himself hampered by the
conditions under which he would have to act, or for
other reasons not understood by the public, he soon
withdrew. We were all sorry to bid him good-by, for
his pleasantries relieved the tension of the inquisition
and infused into the tragic character of the sessions
those veins of light comedy that helped to variegate
and to brighten the earnestness of the situation. We
got along a good deal faster after he had gone, but
still we missed him.

The Committee adjourned on April 14th, not to
convene again until after the adjournment of the
Legislature.

The Committee reconvened, and earnest solid work

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 25 1

was commenced on tlie 21st of May, Mr. Golf being
counsel-in-chief, and Messrs. Frank Moss and \\'illiam
Travers Jerome being associate counsel.

The Senate Bill appropriating $25,000 to meet the
expense of the investigation, had, in the meantime,
been vetoed by Governor Flower in terms that dis-
honored his position even if not himself, and that
showed his moral inability to sink a partisan in tlie
statesman. The stupendous revelations that have
issued from the investigation are a sad commentary
on his gubernatorial blunder, and on the ignomini-
ous phrases in which he saw fit to put his blunder
before the public.

It is foreign to the purpose of our narrative to
follow the details of the investigation as it pro-
ceeded from this point, with occasional suspensions,
until the eve of our recent election. Some refer-
ence will be made to it in our concluding chapter.
There is nothing that parallels it, so far as we are
aware, in the moral history of our race. Although
the Senate Committee entered upon its work with no
suspicion of what their work would involve, it faith-
fully and steadily stood behind Mr. Goff as he merci-
lessly pressed the inquisitorial probe info the quivering
vitals of the body politic ; and as for Mr. Goff, al-
though he committed himself to the service of the
Committee with exceeding misgiving and only in re-
sponse to importunate entreaty, once his affirmative
decision was reached, he threw himself into the work

252 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

with self-regardless and self-consuming devotion, and so
did honor to his profession, created for himself a nation-
al name, and unsuspectingly discovered to his fellow-
citizens the man whom they could agree with enthusias-
tic accord to elevate to the Recorder's bench. It was
the Lexow Committee, Mr. Goff, and his associates —
who, though less conspicuous, were as faithful as he —
that put the cap-sheaf to the work of the two previous
years, showed the inwardness of the situation and
touched the popular heart so deeply that minor con-
siderations passed out of view, and the intelligent con-
science of an aroused municipality could bind itself
together to the nomination and election of a Mayor
whose only purpose it is to serve God and his city.

CHAPTER XXI

THE COMMITTEE OF SEVENTY *

The summer of 1894 found the citizens of New
York in an unwonted state of agitation and excite-
ment on the subject of the condition of their muni-
cipal government, and the character of the individuals
controlling the operations of its several departments.

The supineness and lack of public spirit exhibited,
during a series of years, by those having most at stake,
had permitted every department of the city govern-
ment to be filled by the appointees of Tammany Hall.

This organization, while nominally Democratic, was
composed of, and controlled by, men drawn together
by the sole object of fattening upon the control of
city offices.

The patronage of such offices was used to reward
the members of the organization and others who could
be induced to co-operate with and support them.

New York City has always been largely Democratic
in national politics, and Tammany Hall, calling itself
Democratic, by means of the thoroughness of its or-

* This chapter has been prepared for us by the great courtesy of
Joseph Larocque, Esq., President of the Committee of Seventy.

254 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

ganization, had succeeded in having itself recognized
as the regular Democratic organization of the city, in
Conventions of the Democratic party. Democrats
who believed in the principles of their party, and con-
sidered the success of those principles of paramount
importance when election-day arrived, while condemn-
ing the course pursued in city affairs, felt constrained
to vote their party ticket, fearing that, by pursuing
any other course, injury might result to the national
cause.

In this way Tammany Hall had been permitted to
perpetuate, extend, and consolidate its power.

Long toleration and success had made its leaders
bold, and during the six preceding years the charac-
ter of these appointments to office had steadily dete-
riorated.

Notes of warning had been sounded from time to
time. Mr. Godkin, in the Evening Fost, had called
attention to the existing conditions and tendencies,
and to the danger of permitting Grant to be elected
Mayor, and had day by day endeavored to arouse our
citizens to a sense of their impending danger ; but
the citizens were too much occupied with their own
private affairs to pay much attention to the govern-
ment of their city.

About the beginning of 1892, Dr. Parkhurst having
satisfied himself that a system prevailed, under which,
in consideration of tribute paid to officials, vice and
crime were protected by the Police Department, had

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 255

entered upon his crusade. In spite of hostile criti-
cisms and obstacles of every description interposed in
his way, Dr. Parkhurst had succeeded in uncovering
the corruption of the Police Department sufificiently
to secure the appointment of a Legislative Committee
of Investigation.

The Lexow Committee had proceeded day by day,
in the work of investigation, each day bringing to
light some new evidence of corruption, until the close
of the summer of 1894 found the citizens at last
thoroughly aroused to the necessity of action.

That conditions of corruption and maladministra-
tion analogous to those developed in the Police De-
partment would be found to exist in other Departments
few doubted.

The question of the hour was, How could this condi-
tion be changed ? How could the so-called political
organization which had secured absolute control of
the whole machinery of the city government be over-
thrown ?

The Democratic party in the city was split up into
several distinct organizations, all hostile to Tammany
Hall, and each jealous of the others, and especially
jealous and distrustful of the Republicans.

The Republican party itself was not a unit, and,
judging from the past, w'as not to be relied upon to
unite with the Democrats opposed to Tammany Hall
in support of a ticket put in nomination by them.

Tammany Hall ordinarily controlled more votes

256 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

than either the Republicans or the Independent Dem-
ocrats.

With three tickets in the field Tammany Hall would
be almost certain to succeed through the thorough-
ness of its organization, its control of patronage, and
its power to oppress its opponents.

Experience has shown that in view of the distrust
and jealousy entertained by each of the existing politi-
cal organizations toward the others, there was little
hope of any overture by one to the others for joint
action being successful.

In this situation a number of citizens, realizing the
vital importance of a concerted effort at the coming
election on the part of all who desired to overthrow
the existing corrupt control of public affairs, and to
place the government of the city in the hands of rep-
utable, capable men, who could be relied upon to ad-
minister it on sound, honest, business principles, in the
last days of August issued a call for a meeting of citi-
zens, irrespective of party, to be held at the Madison
Square Garden Concert Hall, on Thursday, September
6, 1894.

This call was as follows :

"New York, August 28, 1894.
" Dear Sir : You are invited to attend a meeting
of the citizens of New York, irrespective of party, to
be held at the Madison Square Garden Concert or
Recital Hall, on Thursday, September 6th, at eight
o'clock.

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

257

"This meeting is called to consult as to the wisdom
and practicability of taking advantage of the present
state of public feeling, to organize a citizens' move-
ment for the government of the city of New York,
entirely outside of party politics, and solely in the in-
terest of efficiency, economy, and the public health,
comfort, and safety.

"It is believed that the people of the city are tired
of the burden of inefficiency, extravagance, and plunder,
and understand that a city, like a well-ordered house-
hold, should be managed solely in the best interests
of its people, and to this end should be entirely di-
vorced from party politics and selfish personal ambi-
tion or gain.

W. Bayard Cutting,
Charles S. Smith,
George F. Baker,
Charles Butler,
James Speyer,
G. G. Williams,
W. L. Strong,
C. Vanderbilt,
William H. Webb,
J. Harsen Rhoades,
Alfred S. Heidelbach,
Morris K. Jessup,
Williarfi Mertens,
W. E. Dodge,
H. C. Fahnestock,
Hugh N. Camp,

H. Cillis,

George Macculloch Miller,
Julius J. Frank,
Woodbury Langdon,
Henry Rice,

F. D. Tappen,

J. Crosby Brown,
Max J. Lissauer,
John P. Townsend,
William Ottmann,
Joseph Larocque,
George W. Quintard,
M. S. Fecheimer,

G. Norrie,

James M. Constable,
Gustav H. Schwab,
S. Frissell."

17

258 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

On the date named, in response to this call, there
was a gathering of some hundreds of citizens.

The meeting was organized by the selection of a
Chairman and Secretary.

Letters were read from many prominent citizens
who were unable to be present, expressing sympathy
with the objects of the meeting. There was an inter-
change of views, and speeches were made by several
of those present. An address was unanimously adopt-
ed, which was as follows, viz.:

" To the People of the City of New York, Regardless of
Party :

" Convincing proofs of corruption in important muni-
cipal departments of this city have been presented ;
inefficiency, ignorance, and extravagance in public
affairs are apparent, and business principles in the
conduct of the affairs of this niunicipality are set
aside and neglected for private gain and partisan ad-
vantage. The present government of this city is a
standing menace to the continued commercial su-
premacy of the metropolis, and strongly concerns the
welfare of every family in the whole country, for there
is no hamlet in the land that the influence of New
York City does not reach for good or evil.

The time has come for a determined effort to bring
about such a radical and lasting change in the ad-
ministration of the city of New York as will insure
the permanent removal of the abuses from which we
suffer, and the management of the affairs of the city
as a well-ordered household, solely in the interests of
its people. Municipal government should be entirely

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 259

divorced from party politics, and selfisli, personal am-
bition or gain. The economical, honest, and business-
like management of municipal affairs has nothing to
do with questions of national or State politics. We
do not ask any citizen to give up his party on national
or State issues, but to rise above partisanship to the
broad plane of citizenship, and to unite in an earnest
demand for the nomination and election of fitting can-
didates, whatever their national party affiliations, and
to form a citizens' movement for the government of
this city entirely outside of party politics, and only in
the interest of efficiency, economy, and public health,
comfort, and safety.

" We pledge our active co-operation with all other
organizations of this city holding the same purposes
and aims, recognizing that only through a combined
and well-organized effort of all citizens who desire
good government can that object be attained."

The meeting also adopted the following resolution,
viz.:

^^ Resolved, That a Committee of Seventy, of which
the Chairman and the Secretary shall be members, be
appointed by the Chair, with full power to confer with
other Anti-Tammany organizations, and to take such
action as may be necessary to further the objects of
this meeting, as set forth in the call therefor, and the
address adopted by this meeting."

Under the authority conferred by this resolution
the Chair appointed the " Committee of Seventy."

26o OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

Its membership represents every shade of opinion
in national politics and all classes of citizens.

The first meeting of the " Committee of Seventy "
was held at the rooms of the Chamber of Commerce
of the State of New York, on September 19, 1894.

An organization was then perfected, and an Execu-
tive Committee and a Finance Committee appointed.

Full powers were conferred upon the Executive Com-
mittee to carry out the objects of the organization.

The Executive Committee, like the General Com-
mittee, was composed of men of all shades of opinion
on national questions ; all agreeing, however, on one
point, viz., That no question of national politics was
involved or should enter into the administration of
city affairs.

They proceeded to frame a platform on which they
could all unite, and which any candidates whom they
might put in nomination must accept.

This platform was as follows, viz.:

THE COMMITTEE OF SEVENTY'S PLATFORM.

" We reiterate the following principles, contained in
the Address to the People of the City of New York,
heretofore issued.

'■'■ Municipal government should be entirely divorced from
party politics and from selfish personal ambition or gain.

'•'' The economical y honest, and business like management of
municipal affairs has nothing to do with questions of na-
tional or State politics.

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 26 1

" We do not ask any citizen to give up his party on
national or State issues, but to rise above partisan-
sliip to the broad plane of citizenship, and to unite in
an earnest demanel for the nomination and election of
fitting candidates, whatever their national party affili-
ations.

" The government of the city of New York, in the
hands of its present administrators, is marked by cor-
ruption, inefficiency, and extravagance ; its municipal
departments are not conducted in the interests of the
city at large, but for private gain and partisan advan-
tage.

"All classes of citizens, rich and poor alike, suffer
under these conditions. This misgovernment endan-
gers the health and morality of the community, and de-
prives its citizens of the protection of life and property
to which they are entitled.

" The call goes to the citizens of New York to face
the dangers that confront them, and resolutely to de-
termine that these conditions shall cease, and that the
affairs of the city shall henceforth be conducted as a
well-ordered, efficient, and economical household, in
the interests of the health, comfort, and safety of the
people.

" We denounce as repugnant to the spirit and
letter of our institutions any discriminations
among citizens because of race or religious
belief.

" We demand that the public service of this city be
conducted upon a strictly non-partisan basis ; that all
subordinate appointments and promotions be based on
Civil Service E.xaminations, and that all examinations,

262 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

mental and physical, be placed under the control of
the Civil Service Commission.

" We demand that the quality of the Pid'lic Schools be
improved, their capacity enlarged, and proper playgroinids
provided, so that every child within the ages required by
law shall have admission to the Schools, the health of the
children be protected, and that all such tnodern improve-
ments be introduced as will make our Public Schools the
equal of those in any other city in the world.

" We insist that the property already acquired by the city
under the Small Park Act shall be promptly devoted to the
purposes of this acquisition, so that our people in the dense-
ly populated parts of our city shall fully enjoy the benefits
of such expenditures.

" We 7irge greater care and thoroughness in the e?iforce-
ment of the health laws, and demand the establishment of
more efiicient safeguards against disease.

" We favor the establishment of adequate public baths
and lavatories for the promotion of cleanliness and in-
creased public comfort, at appropriate places throughout the
city.

" We demand the adoption of a thorough system of street
cleaning, which shall also include a proper disposition of
the refuse and garbage, so that our harbor may be kept free
from obstruction and defilement and the neighboring shores
clear of offal, thus conforming to the methods in other great
cities.

" We call for increased rapid transit facilities in this
city.

" We call for the improvement of the docks and
water-fronts of our great maritime city, so that it
shall enjoy the advantages to which it is entitled by
its unique position with its unrivalled harbor.

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 263

" We heartily favor the separation of municipal from
State and national elections, and a larger measure of
home rule for cities.

" We appeal to the people of this city to cast
aside party prejudice and to combine with us
In a determined effort to elect candidates
chosen solely with reference to their ability
and integrity, and pledged to conduct the af-
fairs of this city on a strictly non-partisan
basis, and who will, as far as may be in their
power, insure good government to the city
of New York."

The Executive Committee appointed a Conference
Committee to meet with the representatives of all
other Anti-Tammany organizations. Many confer-
ences were held and views exchanged as to the gen-
eral policy to be pursued most likely to secure union
and success.

Finally the Executive Committee put in nomina-
tion candidates for the following offices, viz. : Mayor,
President of Board of Aldermen, Judge of the Supe-
rior Court of the City of New York, Sheriff, and two
Coroners.

Pursuant to a resolution previously adopted the
gentleman selected as the candidate for Mayor being
in national politics a Republican, the residue of the
ticket, with the exception of one of the Coroners, was
made up of gentlemen who in national politics were
Democrats.

The nominations so made were approved by the

264 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

General Committee, and finally accepted by all the
other Anti-Tammany organizations — Democratic and
Republican.

Each of the candidates named expressly approved
of the principles of the platform adopted, and agreed
to be governed by those principles in the administra-
tion of his office, if elected, and further, that in mak-
ing appointments he would be guided by considera-
tions of character and capacity alone, and not by party
lines.

From the time when these nominations were made
to the day of election, the Campaign Committee, com-
posed of the Executive Committee and the Finance
Committee, gave themselves up to the work of the
campaign, holding almost daily meetings. Headquar-
ters were established in a house hired for the purpose,
in charge of one of their members selected as mana-
ger, and of their Sub-Committee on publication.

Frequent conferences were held with representa-
tives of the various organizations which had accepted
their candidates, and public meetings were had under
the auspices of the Committee.

Information as to the situation was furnished to the
press from day to day, and reviews of the misleading
statements of facts and figures, put forth by the Tam-
many managers, were carefully prepared and given to
the public.

A force of watchers at the polls was organized
under the direction of the Committee, composed

OUR FUiHT WITH TAMMANY 265

largely of members of the Good Government Clubs,
so that each of the 1,141 Election Districts was pro-
vided on election day with competent and reliable
watchers, interested to see that the election was fairly
conducted.

Proclamations offering rewards for information
leading to the conviction of offenders against the
election laws were posted and distributed.

Paster ballots, containing the names of the candi-
dates of the Committee, in combination with the can-
didates of the several political parties for State offices
and members of Assembly, were distributed to all the
registered voters in the city by mail, and were fur-
nished to the various organizations supporting the
candidates of the Committee, for use on election day.

No pains were spared to bring to the attention of
every voter the momentous character of the issues
involved, and to stimulate his action in support of a
pure, honest, non-partisan administration of our mu-
nicipal government.

These efforts, with the loyal, hearty support of the
several organizations in sympathy with the move-
ment inaugurated by the Committee of Seventy, were
crowned with success on election day.

The result is full of promise to the friends of good
government.

By the recent amendments to the Constitution of
our State under which municipal elections hereafter
are to be held in different years from State and federal

266 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

elections, the road is made more easy for the election
in the future of candidates of character and fitness for
the positions for which they may be put in nomination,
and for maintaining the administration of our munici-
pal affairs on a clean, business-like, non-partisan basis.
To accomplish these results, however, untiring vig-
ilance, on the part of all interested in the cause of
good government, is indispensable.

CHAPTER XXII

ELECTION APPEAL FROM THE MADISON SQUARE PULPIT

The roots of this entire movement, as it has been
thus far portrayed, have been in the churches and
synagogues. The first note struck was to the con-
science, and that note has been sounded persistently
through to the end. It has seemed, therefore, proper
to introduce at this point, the discourse preached
from my pulpit on November 4th — two days before
our recent election ; not at all because of any novelty
in the facts which it presents, but because it aims to
string those facts upon a thread of eternal principle,
and to posit the possibility of thorough reconstruc-
tion, socially and municipally, upon the grounds occu-
pied by the Prophets and Apostles.

THE DISCOURSE.

" Turn ye again now every one from his evil ivay, and
from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the
Lord hath given unto you and to your fathers for ever and
ever." — Jeremiah xxv. 5.

The circumstances under which we meet this morn-
ing afford all in the way of preface that the occasion

268 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

requires. Those who understand the situation best,
are the ones who will most clearly appreciate the se-
riousness of the crisis through which, not only munici-
pally, but also nationally, we are just now passing ;
and we may say not only nationally, but even univer-
sally, for tangible evidence of the anxious interest
taken in this struggle has reached us, not only from
England and the Continent of Europe, but from Asia,
and from as far away as Tasmania, away around on
the opposite side of the globe.

As the conflict has progressed and the issue has
been made clear, it has become evident that the forces
which are now contending with each other here are
forces broader in their scope and longer in their in-
tent than such as concern themselves with any single
town or year ; rather that they are the energies of
good and evil — as long as the years and as wide as
the world — which everywhere confront each other,
but which just now are marshalled in concentrated
warfare upon the arena of our own municipality.

These things have been stated here before, you will
remember, but their prior statement was open to the
charge of being mixed with elements of theory and
supposition. But the supposititious stage is past. We
stand down now on the clear, open ground of absolute
demonstration. The facts in the case are known.
They are known and they are appreciated, and the
grounds of conviction lie out easily in sight and are
matter of record. So that to-day when we say that

OUR FKiHT WITH TAiMMANY 269

the pcrsonitrl of our city government is a (quotation
from every species of criminal that rotten civiHzation
is able to produce, or the devil able to invent, we are
simply asserting a commonplace that the moral intel-
ligence of the entire country is prepared enthusiasti-
cally to consent to, and that can be stated to-day with
no more fear of its provoking a presentment or an in-
dictment, than though I were to repeat the Sermon
on the Mount, or the Ten Laws that Moses brought
down from the top of Sinai. It has taken a good
while to do it, but it is done and will stay done. His-
tory can never go back of it, and we are by so much
nearer the millennium in consequence of it. How long
it will take to cover the balance of the distance is not
the question. The river ends in the sea, and the river
is making ground. Praise ye the Lord !

And it is this moral property that makes out the
distinctness of the present issue. The outlines of the
conflict are as sharply marked as they were in the
duel waged between Christ and Satan in the wilder-
ness, and for the same reason. There is nothing in
this campaign that does not come home as directly
and easily to an ignorant man as it does to an in-
structed one ; to a foreigner, as it does to a native ;
to a poor man, as it does to a wealthy one. It is not
a matter of capital ; it is not a question of policy ; it
is not an affair of thinking, reasoning, or philosophis-
ing. It is a question of what is right and what is
wrong. Conscience is the one only particular faculty

270 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

that comes just now into play ; and the moral element
is the strength of the whole movement and has been
all the way through. That is why we none of us were
obliged to make a specific study of political economy
before entering into the conflict, except to the extent
that the Commandments make out the biggest half of
any system of political economy that has vigor enough
to hold its own and win its way. That is why the
self-respecting element of community has all come
into solid coalition in this movement with the under-
standing that all side considerations shall be postponed.
When righteousness has been establisjied in this city
the air will still bristle with difficult questions with-
out doubt, and questions that conscience alone will
not suffice to answer save as it is aided by experience,
by research, and by careful balancing of counter-con-
siderations ; but there is nothing of that here. There
is nothing in the movement immediately in hand that
calls for anything just now, or that will call for any-
thing this week, but a conscience to feel the right, and
a moral purpose to carry the discernment of conscience
into effect. In other words, avoid it as you like, and
wince under it as you please, the election in this city
next Tuesday will practically be nothing more nor less
than a public vote on the Ten Commandments.

The history of this city, therefore, has reached a
point of moral crisis. The general facts in the case
are not so much better known than they were two
years ago, but those facts have been so pared down to

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 27 1

sharp edges and acute angles that there is no longer
any way to avoid seeing them, and have been so
pushed into the tissue of the general consciousness
that that consciousness is stirred to reflection and
compelled to action. There is nothing truer than the
statement that has been reiteratedly made by parties
that are themselves involved in these iniquities, that
matters are in no worse shape now than they have
been for a good many years. More than two years
ago people well versed in the municipal situation were
saying, " These things are all true, but what are you
going to do about it?" The staggering point in the
situation was its moral lifelessness — pricking the con-
science produced no pain. We were suffering from
ethical bankruptcy. We were being ruled by beasts,
and yet it did not hurt our feelings. Our moral cuticle
had become seared down to the situation.

I am not speaking now of the conscience of our
rulers — take them as they run, they haven't any ; at
least any that is available for ethical effects. We
have it from them directly that they cannot under-
stand what this that we call " moral indignation " is
all about. All that crime means to them is the liabil-
ity of being sent to Sing Sing for it. With them re-
morse is a lost art. I am not saying that there are
not exceptions to this. I am simply saying that, taken
as a whole, the herd that is preying on us is composed
of a lot of moral incapables that have breathed iniquity,
eaten iniquity, drunk iniquity, and bartered in iniquity

2/2 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

SO long that to them iniquity is actually the normal
condition of things, as propriety and decency are nor-
mal to the estimate of people that live righteously.

But that is not the worst part of the matter by any
manner of means. The worst part of the matter is
that it has struck a kind of moral paralysis into the
heart of community at large. Now this is the moral
mire out of which we are slowly emerging. One of
the most thrilling experiences which I have had in this
entire campaign was the enthusiastic applause which
greeted a public utterance that I recently made to the
Ten Commandments. The idea of a big New York audi-
ence, in the heat of a political campaign, giving three
cheers for the Decalogue, is — I don't know what it is —
there is no word that will quite cover the situation.

Now conceive to yourselves the strategic character
of the moment, and the unspeakable opportunity that
will this week be at the command of the God-fearing
people of this town, of taking this intensified condition
of moral sentiment and sticking a pin in it and making
it a permanent fixture of our municipal character and
the character of our municipal government. Here is
a chance to lift the chariot wheels out of the muddy
ruts of human villainy and filth, and set them down on
the hard, ringing pavement of the mind and will of
God. That is what this election stands for — and it is
all that it stands for. That is why we bring this mat-
ter into the church, and there is no place where it is
so perfectly and appropriately at home as in the

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 2/3

church. I declare to you that I cannot understand
how there can be a preacher in this city, provided
only he has crawled far enough out of his clerical
shell to know what is going on, and provided he has
not been so celestially sublimated as to be oblivious
of the terrestrial condition that our holy religion is
given for no other purpose but to take hold of and
improve, can let slip the super-eminent opportunity of
sounding a tone that shall transfix the situation, and
pierce to the vitals of the individual and collective
conscience.

New York is going to be morally exalted this week
or it is going to be morally blighted. There can be
done in one week of crisis what cannot be done in an
entire year when there is no crisis on hand. The cir-
cumstances here in New York to-day are no different
from those recorded in the Old Testament times.
There is just as much reason why every preacher in
this city — Protestant, Catholic, and Hebrew — should be
a Jeremiah to-day as there was why Jeremiah should
be a Jeremiah in his day, dealing Titanic blows upon
the organized iniquity of the Baal-worshippers and
treacherous scoundrels, who trod under foot precisely
the same laws that are being crushed into the earth
by the conscienceless and godless criminals who are
determining our city's history and destiny. There is
just as much politics in the way Jeremiah handled his
times as there is in the way I am handling our times,
and there is not a shred of politics in either.
18

274 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

If I cared to step aside and say anything just
now about the matter of a revival of religion, I
would declare that even the possibilities of a revival
are limited by the responsiveness of the conscience
that the reviving spirit has to deal with. Conscience
lies at the basis of the entire situation. Preaching is
effective only as there is a responsive conscience to
preach to. The Holy Ghost can work only as there
is a conscience to work upon. When I come before
a congregation I feel that there is no opportunity for
effect save as there is that in the hearts of the hearers
upon which words of truth and admonition can hook
themselves. There can be only so much moral power
in the speaker as there is moral hook in the hearer.
The power in the pulpit is measured by the conscience
in the pew. I assure you there is nothing we preachers
feel so crowding a need of right in the church as con-
science ; the sharp, sensitive response to that which
is righteous ; and now here is an opportunity this
week, by a single consummate stroke, to make right-
eousness a big reality to the stimulated sensibilities
of an aroused community, and to send forth a tone
that shall collect the scattered notes of human esti-
mate into a sublime chord that shall go ringing through
the city and country, and down the years.

Let us also clearly understand, just at this point
of our discussion, that it is not a question whether
things have not for a considerable time past been
equally as bad as they are now. That is one of the

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 2/5

lines of defence that is being pursued by certain of
the wretched official protectors of public virtue
against whom our warfare is directed. The District-
Attorney's office — the pivot upon which, according to
repute, there hinges as much in the way of travesty
of justice as in any other single department of our
city government — the District - Attorney's office,
through its chief exponent, has just given the public to
understand that the present situation is substantially
identical with what it has been for a number of pre-
vious administrations. Supposing that it be true — we
may have our own opinion as to whether it is true —
but supposing it to be true, that does not touch the
matter. Supposing there were an open cesspool
down on City Hall Square, and that it had been there
for ten years, yes, for a hundred years, and that as
the principles of sanitation began to take scientific
shape, men should begin to look more and more quiz-
zically at that cesspool, and to resent with increasing
seriousness its mal-odorousness and its fetid and ty-
phoid-fever-producing properties ; to what degree do
you think it would satisfy the intelligent sense of
community to be told that it was an indignity to the
pool to find fault with it, that it smelt no worse, and
caused no more mortality than it had been doing for
half a century ? Now that is exactly what we have
down there on City Hall Square, an open cesspool
(moral cesspool), and its fatality is not diminished nor
its ethical stench sweetened by its having said for it

2y6 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

that it has been polluting the air for ten years, or
even for a hundred years. There are developing in
community, certain strenuous convictions as to mu-
nicipal sewerage, and we are trying simply to con-
trive a system of piping that shall drain that politi-
cal quagmire, and see if we cannot get rid of the
odor, the mire, and the fever-germs ; and the length of
time that it has been lying there is neither interesting
nor pertinent.

I want now, that you who are parents should reflect
upon what all this municipal condition means in its
relation to your children. You were told here, almost
three long years ago, that it is your boys that are at
stake. The influences with which the air is saturated
are boring into and honeycombing the tissue of young
integrity. That which is wrong cannot be treated as
though it were right without working in the conscience
a certain amount of paralysis. There is nothing more
insidiously fatal to a boy's prospective manhood than
to gain an early impression that the difference between
a straight line and a line that is not quite straight, is
more an affair of imagination than it is of fact. Now
a law that is simply set up to be played with is nothing
more nor less than a conscience-pulverizer. A man
who is in very close alliance with the liquor interest
in this town, but who, for all that, believes in law and
in its enforcement, and who appreciates distinctly the
fact that there is nothing that will abstract from a
young person moral virility like letting him imagine

OUR FIGHT wrril TAMMANY 2/7

that law is not a fact but a fiction, recently told me
this anecdote of his own boy :

" Father," said he, " that liquor saloon is open and
it is Sunday, and the law says it shall not be open
Sunday. Father, what is law anyway ? "

Now the budding conception in that little chap's
mind, that law really means nothing in particular, was
a small shove toward his perdition. The possibilities
of ruin, temporal and everlasting, are involved in any
conception of law that does not load it with ingredi-
ents of the immutable and the eternal. And because
in this community law is not handled as though it
had its grounds in the eternal, nor truth dealt with
other than as nine-pins set up to be bowled down, nor
principle in general treated as possessing the power of
an endless life and abiding from everlasting to ever-
lasting, character is despoiled of its virility, and vivid
conscience and muscular integrity are tending to be-
come a matter of memory and of record only, not a
present potency working among us in stern but sus-
taining imperialism.

But still more productive of young irresolution and
degeneracy is the presence in our midst of men who
are officially exalted, but yet whom we know to be
personally vile — individual incarnations of every im-
aginable breach of commandment, whether of God or
man. It does not lie within the range of possibility
that we should have a mayor, or judges, or the heads
of important and responsible departments who are
either themselves individually tainted, or who are in

2/8 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMA3SIY

transparent and eminent sympathy with those who are
so tainted, without that fact operating with the power
of an irresistible and incurable blight in particular
upon young men who grow up with an instinctive re-
spect for high official position, and who, therefore,
cannot contemplate the occupant of such a position,
however confessedly vicious and contemptible, without
to a degree identifying the position and the man who
fills it, and letting some of the dignity of the place in-
sinuate itself into his conception of the functionary,
and varnishing with the semblance of grace that func-
tionary's dishonor. When you tell over the inventory
of the murderers, thieves, perjurers, bribe-takers, de-
faulters, drunkards, and libertines that are discharg-
ing high official function in this city to-day, remember
that each of them helps to make murder, theft, de-
bauchery, and all the rest, a little less repulsive to the
moral taste of your dear boy ; and when you go to
the polls on Tuesday, think that over.

But it is not only as parents, but as patriots also
that you have to consider this matter. You cannot
look intently and passionately into the situation of
our own city at this juncture without feeling that in a
very true and momentous sense the condition and
prospects of the entire country are implicated in it.
There is not a town of any considerable size in the
Union that is not going to be either ennobled or de-
graded by our own municipal issue on Tuesday. Just
that relation is appreciated, and in many instances
with painful intensity. If we weaken Satan's grip on

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 279

New York this week, tliere are anxious spirits scat-
tered all through the country that will be saying on
Wednesday morning : " Well ! if they can do it in New
York, we can do it in our town." And they will do it.
A successful blow struck for God and the right here
on Manhattan Island will create a thousand echoes
far and wide across the continent, and mean politics
will look meaner, and filthy politicians will look filthier,
and elevated statesmanship will appear grander to the
mind and heart of every honest American. Every-
thing is possible when once you have seen it done.
There are no lessons like object-lessons. It is simple
statement of historic fact to say that there are hun-
dreds of movements, similar to the one here in prog-
ress, that have been initiated at the impulse of the
movement here, and every one of these movements is
going to precipitate itself in a long leap toward con-
summation if they see the efforts of this city culminat-
ing in success. His must be a dead soul — a hundred
times dead — that is not thrilled with the gigantic im-
pulse of such a consideration. It is as though you were
able to put yourself at the heart of this great body
politic and produce an influence that should strengthen
the pulse-beat in each separate vein and artery of the
system.

This reference to the national bearings of our pres-
ent situation suggests a point which needs to be made
carefully, but which I am sure can be made safely if it
is made outspokenly. One special phase of current
national anxiety has its grounds in the wide preva-

28o OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

lence at home and abroad of what is scientifically
known as anarchy ; and when it was intimated some
days ago that there was a movement among certain
anarchists in this city, looking to a combination for
the replacement of our present city government by
one that was better, the instant conclusion in certain
quarters appears to have been that it was the latest
instance out of Beelzebub trying to cast out Beelze-
bub. Without having taken a brief for the anarchists,
and with no intention at all of pleading for their ec-
centric method of reforming history, I submit to your
consideration that there are anarchists, and there are
anarchists. The genius of anarchy you understand,
of course, is nothing more nor less than defiance of
law. Now while clearly there cannot be very much
said in behalf of a system that starts with the aban-
donment of all system, yet defiance of law may be
overt, or it may be covert. It may parade with red
flags, or it may have the parade and omit the flags.
As a general principle the red-bannered procession is
to be preferred, for then you know precisely who is
who, and what is what. If they omit the banners
they may still be anarchists, but you may take them
for nuns marching to a convent, or monks trooping to
a monastery, or mayors, aldermen, judges, and commis-
sioners administering a city government. It clears
the air, therefore, and simplifies matters vastly if they
go well badged. Now if there is anything that the
Senate Committee has succeeded in demonstrating to
this city, particularly during the week past, and yes-

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 28 1

terday, it is that the corporation of political reptiles
that is administering this city, has for its genius, con-
tempt for everything that is fixed and determinate,
and that the outward ceremonies of legality under
which it conducts its operations are simply the thin
and sneaking disguise with which it seeks to mask its
anarchical defiance of everything which is statutory ;
in other words, that the nerve and tissue of the sys-
tem is anarchy in its essence, and of as pure a type
as ever was produced in Chicago or St. Petersburg,
but unencumbered by bunting, tricked out in the mil-
linery of legality, lacking in the ingenuousness of anar-
chy of the ordinary type, but on that account more
perilous because more insidious, as man shrinks with
colder horror from a slimy serpent than he does from
a frank and honest gorilla. Anarchy of the ingenuous
order plants hard blows upon the mailed front of civil-
ization ; anarchy of the Tammany type is every whit
as defiant of law, but clandestinely introduces its sub-
tile virus into the tissue of civilization. Oh ! the red-
flagged style is vastly to be preferred.

But there is that in the situation which extends our
thoughts even beyond national frontiers. It is not
American conceit or bravado that prompts us to feel
that cis-Atlantic civilization is appointed to play an
important role in the history and development of the
nations at large ; but we are not as a nation going to
be able permanently to communicate impulses that we
do not ourselves nationally incarnate. We are not
going to be permanently able with our morals and our

282 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

religion to work foreign results of a finer type than
those which we are able by the same morals and re-
ligion to produce at home. What we are, will be the
measure of what we can do, nationally exactly as much
as individually. The heathen have already begun to
be suspicious of religion imported from America,
which shows itself under such hideous forms of de-
velopment in so many visitors from America ; and if
America, if New York, has not in its Christianity virile
tension sufficient to subdue its own heathen and pro-
tect itself from its own outlaws, it will lack just those
credentials needed to secure its hospitable reception
and entertainment in Pekin and Madagascar.

In every aspect, then, under which we may survey
the situation, our hearts beat with high anticipation in
the same instant in which we tremble with unspeak-
able solicitude. If a few loop-holes of insight, that
have been almost accidentally gained into the un-
fathomed depths of pollution in which our munici-
pality is officially reeking, have brought to view so
much that is loathsome and unutterable, what must
we imagine would be the full story of dishonor, if it
could be told in the horror of all its details? And one
thing that we have to remember is, that with the nation
as with the individual, sin, when it is finished, bringeth
forth death. There is no power, even in the might of
God, to recover a people, and set it again upon a high
track of destiny, when it has once reached a certain
point of moral decay. History declares that, with a
directness and with an emphasis of reiteration that is

OUR Fi(;irr wnii tammany 283

ovcrwhc'liniiig and appalling. Vou can love your coun-
try and work for it, and pray and plead for it, but
there is a stage of rottenness which, when once reached,
the country is damned already beyond the power of
the Holy Ghost to do anything for it. If you do not
fancy that way of stating it, you can look into your
Bibles or examine profane history generally, and find
the .matter put, perhaps, in a manner more to your
liking ; but the )nattcr is the same. National sin
means national poison, and the unstemmed progress
of national disease means eventual national death ; it
always has and always will, and God will make no ex-
ception in behalf of the Western Continent. If there
is no way of staying the tide of pollution that is set-
ting with so full and oozy a current, as has been repul-
sively demonstrated in our own town, if, I say, there is
no way of stopping it, there is not much remaining for
us to do but wait for destiny and pray for the Lord to
take us before the year of destiny comes. Although
I had some lively suspicions as to the real condition
of affairs when I first spoke to you upon the matter
two years ago last February, I confess that, at that
time, my worst presentiments hardly more than grazed
the actuality as it has since been disclosed ; and I do
profoundly thank the Lord for the stimulating ob-
structions that were put in our way by the canting
hypocrites that whined about the danger of having
attention drawn to matters that might bruise public
sensibilities and tarnish the general mind. The lan-
guage that was used by those filthy Pecksniffs, read in

284 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

the lurid light of recent developments, fills us with
what I dare call a holy loathing beyond the power of
all words to express or even suggest.

Now that is our city government, and what is this
town going to do with it ? Is there a man in New
York, provided only he even imagines himself to be
respectable, that with the case boldly put to his con-
science, dares stand up and tell even his own heart that
he is going to vote on the side of municipal dishonor
and governmental rot? A hundred years from to-day
history on this side, and on the other side of the At-
lantic, will be in some measure what the momentous
issues of this week make it. The country is witness-
ing us. The nations from afar have diligent eyes fixed
upon us ; the years to come are going to frame their
purposes from the material of this week's verdict.

May the mighty Spirit of God so possess this vast
metropolis on the coming Tuesday, as to lift us mo-
mentarily out of the tainted atmosphere we are
breathing, draw us into visible fellowship with those
overarching realities that abide through all the days
and years, reveal to us the pregnant possibilities of
the supreme moment, and cause the enlightened and
earnest citizenship of New York so to mass itself upon
the one grim and muscle-knotted foe that we have to
meet, that from this time on virtue shall mean more,
vice be painted blacker, despair seize the beggarly
mob that have been trying to filch the jewels from our
municipal crown, and the door be opened to a nobler
future of American dignity, prosperity, and power.

CHAPTER XXIII

VICTORY ITS PERILS AXO OPrORTUN'ITIF.S

Two months have elapsed since election, and we are
now in a situation to understand with considerable
clearness, both how much and how little our victory
denotes. There has been elected to the Mayoralty a
man with a clean record, and one who did not purchase
his election by mortgaging his administration either
to any party or to any individual aspirants. He en-
tered upon the discharge of his duties untrammelled ;
he was elected on the platform of non-partisanship,
and our confidence in the honest obstinacy of the man
is so entire that we believe he will devote himself
unswervingly to the work of actualizing the non-par-
tisan principle.

Mayor Strong is going to put into the positions of
administrative and executive power, men whom the
city will respect. It is almost paralyzing to reflect
that in the course of six months, if Albany does not
prove an obstructionist, the administrative boards of
the city will be filled with men whom we shall be glad
to honor ; men whom we should not be ashamed to
recognize or to admit to the intimacies of our circle
of acquaintance.

286 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

" Excise Board," " Police Board," and the rest are
expressions that have so long awakened in our minds
feelings of aversion and of contempt, that it is only
by a mental strain we can conceive of a situation
wherein these same terms will be suggestive to us of
decency, gentlemanliness, and intelligence. That is
one of the results which we can anticipate with assur-
ance. Mayor Strong will have to be a different man
from what he is to-day, and pass under the control of
influences that he would to-day indignantly spurn, be-
fore he will knowingly allow any man, whom he be-
lieves to be knavish and depraved, permanently to
occupy in the city any official position of trust and
power. That is a great tribute to render, and it is a
great expectation to cherish. It will differentiate the
coming three years from the past three as widely as
man is differentiated from the voracious beast which
Tammany has delighted to accept as the symbol of its
own brutal spirit and purpose.

Besides the results which have been wrought within
our own city, there needs to be mentioned, also, the
impulse which has been given to municipal reform
throughout the country. There is scarcely a town of
any considerable size, North, South, East, or West,
that is not considering the same problems as those
which are engrossing us. The movement was, to a
large degree, caught from New York, and the defeat
of Tammany Hall in November carried with it an im-
pulse making for the overthrow of any number of

OUR FIGHT Wnil TAMMANY 287

little, unorganized, anil lUKhristened 'I'ainnianys the
country through. All of this we are authorized to re-
joice in and to be grateful over. And it is not because
we prize accomplished results so lightly, but rather be-
cause we estimate them so highly, that we desire to see
them a continuous possession, and are impelled, be-
fore bringing our volume to a close, to consider cer-
tain elements in the case that menace our present
situation, and that threaten to dissipate the glorious
success consummated on the 6th of November.

Our municipal victory never could have been gained
except as the outcome of popular enthusiasm. Now,
while there is a power in enthusiasm, there is also a
peril in it ; nothing will coagulate so quickly as blood,
and nothing chill so readily as enthusiasm. The
moral temperature of this town marks several de-
grees under what it was two months ago. We do not
mean that the town is less moral than it was then,
but that its moral appreciations are less tense. The
aroused indignation of the city was what gained the
victory, but its indignation would not reach the same
fever-point at seeing itself despoiled of the fruits of
victory. It takes a good deal of integrity to become
righteously indignant ; but it takes a vast deal more
of integrity to be able to keep righteous indignation in
stock — to be drawn on at sight.

This city is jealous of its rights, but not yet suffi-
ciently alive to its rights to have its jealousy a per-
manencv. One reason of that is that it has been so

288 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

long since the will of the people has counted for any-
thing here in New York, that we have most of us got-
ten a little out of the habit of thinking that it ought
to count for anything. This is one of the lessons that
we shall have to learn. We have been for a good many
years municipally enslaved, and it is going to take
time to reacquire the art of being sensitive to inter-
ference with our civic rights. We are a population of
a million and a half, and yet two years ago the ques-
tion of the Mayoralty was decided by one man. The
rest of us had no more voice in the matter than we
had in the choice of the President of France or of the
Pope of Rome, and yet we went on singing with
traditional complacency our old hymn, which sounds
well in church, but means nothing on the street :

" My country, 'tis of thee.
Sweet Land of Liberty."

Now, while it has been necessary that the popular
conscience should be quickened in order to our be-
coming relieved from the immoral despotism under
which we have suffered, there is a good deal more
work that will have to be done before we shall be in
situation to break ourselves loose from all despotism,
moral as well as immoral. If we have gotten rid of
the devil, or at least some of his angels, the next
thing to get rid of will be the dictators which, how-
ever decent superficially, are likely to be first-cousins
of those angels ; and this second emancipation is a

OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMAXV 2S9

matter of greater difficulty than the first, ami will
require more time and effort and training. It is an
amazing fact, that much as we talk about liberty, and
noisily and fervently as we celebrate the Fourth of
July, the number of people, even of the intelligent
classes, that decline to be " managed," is compara-
tively small ; and if citizens wdio are above forty-five
are so rusted into the hiibit of being " bossed," then
the bulk of our effort must be put into the work of
preventing men who are under forty-five from ever
getting rusted into that habit.

If 1 were to mention the greatest lesson which I have
learned during the past three years, it would be that of
the damnable dangerousness of a professional politi-
cian, and it is a truth that needs to be sanctified to
the devout consideration of the citizens of this city,
that we have not gotten rid of that in getting rid of
Tammany Hall. As to the rank and file of people,
they are right, and we can afford to trust them. The
nearer we come to them and the more deeply and
sympathetically we enter into their experiences and
circumstances, the greater the confidence which we
feel warranted in having in them. The people must
be trusted. When the issue presented to them, as in
the recent campaign, is a distinct one, they will ap-
preciate it and seize upon it.

Now, the professional politician is the people's
natural enemy. He takes a professional satisfaction
in manipulating the people's interest without having
19

290 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

any moral appreciation of the significance for good
or evil wliich those interests involve. He is like a
man playing at chess, who enjoys handling his pieces
without those pieces being representative to him of any
other value than what attaches to them as gaming im-
plements. It is not intended to say that every man
who officially concerns himself with these matters is
animated by the spirit we have just specified ; sweep-
ing vituperation would be unwarranted and in exces-
sively bad taste. Still the professional politician, un-
derstood in the sense above indicated, is a popular en-
emy; his watchword is diplomacy rather than principle ;
he is made dizzy by travelling a straight line; he values
a situation according to the number and variety of
combinations into which it admits of being developed,
and has no interest in municipal reform for the reason
that it constricts the area of his versatility.

In the earlier part of our three years' struggle, we
came into no contact with politicians. The promise of
success was so small as to engender in their breasts
no temptation. It was only when it began to look as
though something might come of it that they com-
menced to survey the movement with telescopic com-
posure, to figure on the chances of issue, to rouge
their bloodless complexions with a thin wash of af-
fected enthusiasm, and to lubricate their disused
machinery with reference to possible contingencies.
We first struck the track of this species of ravening
wolves early in 1894, about the time when Albany be-

OUK FIGHT WITH TAMMANY 29!

gan to act on the matter of sending down an Investi-
gating Committee. There was a good deal of quiet
demonstration along the same line after the Com-
mittee had been designated and had held its first
"reception" at the Metropole. A large amount of
elaborate activity of the same sort was expended in
shaping the Committee's preliminary work on election
cases, which were emphasized primarily in the interest
of partisan capital, not with an eye single to the weal of
New York City. It asserted itself in the matter of coun-
sel to the Committee in the bringing of W. A. Suther-
land into the scene, and in the consideration of some
other names that never became a matter of public
record, and that were considered only with a view to
their political availability.

Once the investigation got well under way, it moved
at the push of its own momentum. When Mr. Goff
had dived down and brought to the surface one or
two specimens of salient corruption, the aroused popu-
lar feeling would brook no interruption of the work,
and the politicians had no show. Politicians are like
bats that fly around only when there is nothing else
in particular going on. There was too much going
on between May and November to make either their
wings or their beaks of much service. Still, even
during that time, the work of the investigation had a
certain amount of shape given it by the fact of an ap-
proaching election. I believe that the Committee, and
certain influences that were at work upon them, had

292 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

their regard concentrated on election, and not on the
particular weal of the city. The hardest blow was
put in, and the consummating disclosure was arranged
to be histrionically exhibited on the Saturday night
before election. We are not to be understood as
criticising the dramatic conduct of the investigation,
except in view of what transpired later. At election,
things stopped ; and when they were resumed, the
investigation was no more like what it had previously
been than a parade is like a battle-field ; and when it
finally adjourned, instead of concluding in a climax,
as was the case just before election, it stopped with a
slump. We are censuring no one ; we are simply
stating what everybody in this city understands, that
there were influences playing in and out of the in-
vestigation that were not operating with an eye single
to ends for which the Committee ostensibly came
down here, and for which they were asked to come
down. This does not undo the splendid work which
they accomplished, but illustrates the fact that poli-
tics has no genius for directness and thoroughness,
and that a politician is not quite happy so long as he
is doing precisely the thing that he seems to be
doing — being in that respect like a man who is cross-
eyed, who goes one way, but looks two ways while he
is about it.

At the date at which these paragraphs are writ-
ten (January 17th), the Investigating Committee's Bill
has not yet been reported at Albany ; but we venture

OUR Ficin wrrii tammany 293

the prediction that the form in which it will appear
will bear out our previous statement, and that a good
deal more of it will be dictated by political scheme than
by municipal exigency. New York City wants thor-
ough work done — a policy in which a politician has
no interest or confidence. He never tucks in the ends,
for he wants ends leti hanging to which to tie the
threads of his own chicanery.

All of this reference is solely for the purpose of
illustrating the ground upon which our next battle will
have to be fought. We have won a splendid victory,
but it is no part of the purpose of the politicians, the
dictators, and the "bosses " that we should be allowed
to make that victory completely available. Political
bosses are fond of miscellaneousness, as rats like rub-
bish, for it gives them something to nest in.

It is this obstacle that Mayor Strong is likely to
confront. The citizens of New York insist that he
shall be independent. The politicians insist that he
shall be bitted and bridled, and it is conceivable at
this date, that although the city demands that he
should have the power to remove the heads of depart-
ments, that power will not be conceded unless he
comes to an understanding with Albany and Tioga as
to who will be put in the places of those who are re-
moved. It would be vastly better for the city to be
under the government of Tammany hold-overs, than
to be under the direction of men, however decent, that
are put into position at the expense of the Mayor's

294 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

surrender of a part of his proper authority, and of his
sacrifice of a measure of his self-respect and of our
respect for him. It would, in the long run, be better
for the cause of good municipal government, that the
Tammany members of our city boards should serve
their full term, than that better men should be put in
their stead at the expense of the Mayor's capitulating
with self-constituted dictators who consider the city's
necessities only as so much material for aggrandizing
their power, and handle the interests of a great mu-
nicipality with all the bloodless unregard with which
a billiard-player drives his balls or chalks his cue.

One of the most serious considerations suggested
by the situation is, that the work which has been done
by the Society for the Prevention of Crime, the City
Vigilance League, the Good Government Clubs, and
the Committee of Seventy, can hardly be considered
compensating work, if it is only to issue in three years
of oasis in the midst of a continuous desert of cor-
rupt city government. If we had failed on the 6th of
November, it would have been exceedingly difficult to
arouse this city to a renewal of its endeavor two years
hence ; but if, now that we have won, the victory itself
proves a failure, and if, at the end of Mayor Strong's
term, we are left with zeal abated and ranks divided,
it will be an even more difficult task to rally the city
to a renewal of the struggle and a repetition of the
triumph. It is time for us to be considering the bear-
ing which each administrative act is going to have on

OUR VIGUT WITH TAMMANY 295

the question of the contuiuance of honest administra-
tion after the present mayoralty term has expired.

More than 100,000 men voted in November the
Tammany ticket. We won by a margin of less than
50,000 ; so that the shifting of 25,000, made up of the
dissatisfied and the disappointed who voted for Mr.
Strong this year, would easily carry the victory back
into the camp of Tammany — and Tammany never dies.
There will always be a Tammany in New York City,
whatever may be the name or no-name by which it
•may be distinguished.

That which secured for us the victory in November
was the power of the appeal that was so variously and
repetitiously made in behalf of a clean, straight city
government, administered in the interests of the city
on purely business principles. That watchword gained
us the victory, and it is only by adhering to that watch-
word that we shall retain the victory through the years
and years to come. It is the supreme ambition of
our Mayor to be loyal to the principle of it, and any
man or clique of men, any boss or junto, that works
divisively and so relaxes the bonds of coalition which
gave us the victory, and which alone will be competent
to give us the victory again, is a traitor to the city
and to all its vast and complicated interests, and is
worthy only of municipal outlawry and hot civic dam-
nation. It was a serious question whether we should
win in November. It is now a far more serious ques-
tion whether we are going to make that victory the

295 OUR FIGHT WITH TAMMANY

foundation of a permanent victor}^ and whether there
are men and women enough among us who are suffi-
ciently devoted to this city, sufficiently fond of right-
eousness and appreciative of civic liberty to hold
themselves steadily and compactly in line, prepared to
crush every movement that threatens to operate dis-
ruptively, and to bid defiance to every self-constituted
despotism that dares to convert men into playthings,
and to fill its veins with the warm blood which it sucks
from the municipal life. Eternal vigilance is the price
of liberty. It is harder to use success than to win it.
Municipal ground will always have to be a battle-field ;
and may the God of battles multiply his champions,
solidify their ranks, put might into their arms, chiv-
alry into their hearts, and crown us all with a steady
and widening victory.

University of British Columbia Library

DUE DATE

MftR UHEEU
f ES . a 1973 RHT

FORM 310

-'iVVvil

III .11 11 ll'll' III nil I

01266 3255